
Class. 
Book 



Copyright N 

COPYRICHT DEPOSJR 




GEORGE P>. KULE 



The Departed Lord 

or, Words that Bum 






By GEORGE B. KULP 



Author of 



"Calloused Knees/' "Nuggets of Gold" "King's 
Allowance/' "Voice from E entity" etc. 




GOD'S REVIVALIST PRESS 

RINGGOLD, YOUNG AND CHANNING STS. 

Cincinnati, Ohio, U. S. A. 



*Sk 






MM 161921 
g>CI.A611292 



*% { — -^ 

CONTENTS 

I. The Departed Lord - 7 

II. Masters of Circumstances- - - 43 

r3„ III. Gather Not My Soul with Sinners - 41 

IV. According to Work - - - - 56 

V. Thus Saith the Lord- - - - 8j 

VI. Practical Regeneration -•.. - - 102 

VII. "HavingNo Hope" - .- - - 118 

VIII. Purity and Power - - - - 139 

IX. Be Ye Ready - - - • - - 155 

X. Wrath Revealed - - - - 182 

XI. Lying to God - - - - - 199 

XII. The Second Death - 216 

XIII. Dwell Deep - - - - - 232 

XIV. Hell a Place and a State - - - 246 
XV. After This - - - - 263 

XVI. Three Wonderful Days - - - 297 



THE DEPARTED LORD 

" The Lord was departed from Saul" ( i Sam. 
18:12). 

After preaching a sermon on The Judgment at 
Steelton, Pa., one night, I gave the altar call, 
earnestly exhorting the people to yield themselves 
to God, and before I was through a woman 
hastened up the aisle and threw herself down at 
the altar and cried, "O God, give me one more 
chance." She evidently realized in that meeting 
at that time the Spirit was dealing with her for 
the last time. I have a very deep conviction that 
in every revival series of meetings where the 
presence of the Spirit is so marked, and He is 
rejected, there are souls that cross the dead line, 
and their doom is irreversibly sealed. At Ander- 
sonville prison, in Georgia, during the Civil War, 
there was a Confederate prison in which were 
confined some twenty thousand Union soldiers. 
Sherman was making his march to the sea, and 
every man who could be spared was called upon 

7 



8 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

to resist him and his army, until there were but 
few to do guard duty at the prison, and there was 
fear that the prisoners might make a break for 
liberty. In order to hold them a line was drawn 
inside the prison, and some yards from the stock- 
ade, and the prisoners were informed that any 
man coming to that line would be instantly shot, 
and because some men were killed there it was 
called the dead line. I believe there is a "dead 
line" in every life. Dr. Alexander well expresses 
it in these lines: 

There is a time we know not when, 

A place we know not where ; 
That marks the destiny of man, 
For glory or despair; 

There is a line by us unseen, 

That crosses every path, 
The hidden boundry between 

God's mercy and His wrath. 

To pass that limit is to die — 

To die as if by stealth; 
It does not quench the beaming eye 

Nor pale the glow of health. 

The conscience may be still at ease, 

The spirit light and gay ; 
That which is pleasing still may please, 

And care be thrust away. 



WORDS THAT BURN 9 

O where is this mysterious bourne 
By which our path is crossed? 

Beyond which God Himself hath sworn 
That he who goes is lost. 

How far may we go on in sin? 

How long will God forbear? 
Where does hope end ? and where begin 

The confines of despair? 

An answer from the skies is sent 

Ye that from God depart 
While it is called today y repent, 

And harden not your heart. 

My text tells us of a man who had crossed 
the dead line and he knew it, and he knezv why. 
He had repeatedly disobeyed God and did it 
willfully. I challenge anyone to put their finger 
on anything in this man's life that was immoral 
or unclean. There is no record of his getting 
drunk; he did not steal, nor lie, nor run off with 
some other man's wife. He did not gamble, nor 
get rich at other folks' expense; he simply did 
what you are doing every day — he just disobeyed 
God. I do not ask you to accept of the thought 
that men cross the dead line and are as surely 
damned as if they were in hell if I do not prove 
it by the Word of God. I firmly believe what 



io THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

the articles of religion teach that any doctrine 
that is not based upon more than one passage 
of Scriptures we are not required to believe. But 
give attention to the Word as I quote it. "Ephra- 
im is joined to his idols, let him alone." "My 
Spirit shall not always strive with man." "They 
shall go with their flocks and their herds to seek 
the Lord but He will not be found of them." 
Israel in their hearts turned to go back into 
Egypt, and God turned and gave them up, "Be- 
cause I have called and ye have refused; I 
stretched out my hand and no man regarded. 
Because ye have set at nought all my counsel and 
would none of my reproof I also will laugh at 
your calamity; I will mock when your fear Com- 
eth, when your fear cometh as desolation and 
your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when 
distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then 
shall they call upon me but I will not answer; 
they shall seek me early, but they shall not find 
me, for that they hated knowledge, and did not 
choose the fear of the Lord. They would none 
of my counsel, they despised all my reproof." 
Listen to the words of Jesus: "O Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets and 
killest them that are sent unto thee, how often 
would I have gathered thy children even as a 



WORDS THAT BURN n 

hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, 
but ye would not, behold your house is left unto 
you desolate." 

In our text the Holy Ghost makes record ot 
a fact. "The Lord was departed from Saul," 
and in this message to you I believe God would 
have me give you facts. I do not come with 
arguments, but just simple facts that are beyond 
contradiction, like the text. I want to pile the 
Blue Mountains on the Alleghenies, on top of 
these the Rockies, and then the Alps and Appen- 
ines, on these the Himalayas, and have you survey 
them in the light of the eternity to come, and 
act as an eternity bound soul should act— and 
at once. I aim to give you facts, facts, facts 
that ought to startle you into action at once. I 
was called to draw up the will of a man who 
was nearing eternity, and as I did so I saw he 
was unsaved and little interested in spiritual 
things. I asked God to help me say the right 
thing at the right time. I visited him for five 
weeks and talked and prayed and pointed him 
to the only remedy for sin, the only Savior for 
a sinner. As the end drew near I became more 
and more interested and prayed, "O God, give 
me something from Thy Word that will help 
a dying man to find peace." I quoted the most 



12 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

precious passages as the Spirit brought them to 
me, and he listened to me apparently much inter- 
ested, but at last he opened his heart and said: 
"When I was a young man nineteen years of 
age, I worked in a machine shop in -Rhode Island, 
and was surrounded by ungodly men who 
sneered at the truth and at everything religious. 
I had a Christian mother, but went contrary to 
her teachings and imbibed the heresy of those 
men, and now when you quote the Word as you 
have done, what those men said comes up before 
me." Then God gave me a passage that I did 
not quote to this dying man, and it was this: 
"The wicked are driven away in their wicked- 
ness." He died without any hope; he had re- 
jected the truth and God left him. I was in a 
meeting once upon a time and saw a man with 
the most pitiful expression on his face, showing 
he was at least interested. I went to him and 
talked to him of giving his heart to God, and 
he said to me, "If I could only get back twenty- 
four years." But you cannot reverse the wheels 
of time; there is no road to yesterday; that time 
with its opportunity had gone forever and as 
far as his life had showed, God had gone with 
it. Facts you know, not arguments. A mer- 
chant who had no time for anything but business, 



WORDS THAT BURN 13 

who thought in numbers, dollars, dimes, cents, 
who saw everything through his ledger and day- 
book, had a good wife who spent much time 
praying for him, and at last persuaded him to 
go to a camp where she was during the meeting. 
He came the last Sunday night and God, in an- 
swer to that woman's prayers, put him under 
awful conviction till he trembled, and forced to 
decision, said No to God. In six weeks time he 
was taken with his last sickness; friends prayed 
with him, exhorted him to pray. His wife pled 
with him, but while demons from the pit gath- 
ered round the bed waiting to drag his naked 
soul down to the home of the damned, he an- 
swered all their entreaties by saying, "God left 
me the last Sunday night at that camp meeting." 
God was departed from that soul and he knew 
why. I was in a meeting at a home camp in 
Kansas and there was a woman who wanted to 
give her heart to God and come to the camp, 
but her friends who were opposed to the doc- 
trines of holiness, kept her away. It was her 
last call and she died in a few days, but her 
friends could not save her; they had kept her 
from God, but they could not snatch her from 
the clutches of death. I was preaching in a 
church in summer time, and the windows being 



14 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

up a woman in an adjoining house heard the 
sermon, and heard Sunday after Sunday. God 
put her under conviction. One Sunday night 
she came to church and the Holy Ghost was 
faithful to her, but she went home after saying 
No to Him. That week she was taken sick, and 
sat in her rocking chair saying, "I am lost ! I am 
lost!" Some of the folks came to me and told 
me of her condition, and I sent some Christian 
ladies to see her and they talked to her of her 
soul, and of the One who is mighty to save; 
but all that woman would do was to sit in her 
chair and rock to the sad refrain, "I am lost! I 
am lost!" God was departed from her. 

Facts and more facts. During a meeting in 
which many young people were giving their 
hearts to God, a young man was under deep con- 
viction, and it continued till the meeting closed. 
The last night the pastor went to him and said, 
"George, give your heart to God tonight; this 
is the last night of the meeting and the Spirit is 
striving with you; yield tonight — yield now." He 
was very thoughtful, delayed his answer as 
though thinking. The pastor urged him further, 
but at last he said, "Not tonight." The meeting 
closed ; he went to his home. The next morning 
his mother called him, "Come to breakfast, son; 



WORDS THAT BURN 15 

we are all ready to sit down." But he did not 
come. Again the mother went to the stairs and 
called, "George, get up, come to your breakfast; 
we are nearly through." He did not come. His 
younger brother said, "I will bring him." And 
taking a cane from the corner he ran upstairs, 
poked George in the side and said, "Get up you 
lazy bones!" but there was no move; he poked 
him again and then dropped the cane in fear 
and ran down stairs saying, "Mother, I poked 
him twice and he did not move!" The mother, 
smitten with fear ran upstairs to find that George, 
who had the night before said no to God, was 
compelled to go when death called him. He had 
his last opportunity the night before, and mur- 
dered it. 

A young woman in the state of Pennsylvania, 
reared by an infidel father who paved her way 
to hell by teaching her the contents of the Age 
of Reason, was at last, after her father's death, 
brought under the influence of the Gospel by an 
earnest minister Whose services she attended. 
She gave her heart to God, and for some years 
lived an humble Christian life. In the course of 
time the minister Was removed by the calendar; 
a new preacher came; one of a different type, 
who had been trained under the new regime, 



16 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

with a new "Course of Study," an evolutionist, a 
higher critic of the destructive type, and in his 
sermons he gave vent to the things which this 
young woman had heard her father say, many 
years ago. How strange it seems that men can 
and do preach things in orthodox pulpits today, 
that if they had preached them forty years ago, 
they would have been expelled. Her faith was 
weakened ; she lost her experience, and soon after 
died. During her last illness the preacher came 
to see her. When she told him what his destruct- 
ive criticism had done for her, and said to him, 
"You are preaching What my infidel father once 
said, you are rehashing the things Paine taught, 
from an orthodox pulpit, I have lost all the faith 
I ever had. I am going to hell, and you will 
come after me. I am damned and you did it." 
During the campmeeting at Beulah Park, Allen- 
town, Pa., an earnest, talented Methodist preach- 
er was a constant attendant and a very helpful 
hearer. He received the Holy Ghost as his Sanc- 
tifier as a result of the sermons he heard at that 
time. In his earlier years he had been a Meth- 
odist preacher, filling a pulpit in a conference, 
was devoted and true; but his Presiding Elder 
came quarterly and would preach sermons that 
tore the Word of God to pieces, assailing the 



WORDS THAT BURN 17 

Pentateuch, denying the Prophetical Books, and 
pursuing the usual course of the higher critic of 
the day. The young man followed him, and went 
to the logical conclusion, and out of the pulpit, 
into Socialism, became a noted Socialist orator, 
but never found any rest for his soul. He went 
to an evangelistic service held by Bro. Bieder- 
wolf, went to. the altar, found the Christ he had 
rejected, went shouting down the streets iand 
told all he met of his joy in believing, and was 
led of God hack into the ministry. He is at this 
very date minding the Holy Ghost, and is headed 
toward the evangelistic field, preaching a full 
salvation. 

Facts, not arguments. A chaplain was visit- 
ing a hospital ; the surgeons had just made their 
rounds, and one of them said, "Chaplain, you had 

better go see that man in cot No. , he is 

going to pass in his checks pretty soon, and 
there is no hope for him." The chaplain was 
soon by the side of the dying soldier, and accost- 
ing him asked, "My boy, how is it?" and received 
as an answer, "I am done for ; going over soon — 
no hope." The chaplain said, "Had you not bet- 
ter pray?" and the dying man laughed in his 
face. "Ask me to pray? You do not know who 
you are talking to, or you would never do that." 



18 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Then he unburdened himself. "Let me tell you 
chaplain. There was a young fellow came into 
our company, and he was as green as a gum log. 
He never swore an oath; he did not know one 
card from another, and as for liquor, he never 
had tasted it. I made up my mind I would make 
him one of us, and as bad as myself. And chap- 
lain, that fellow got so he would swear till we 
old boys would stand back in sheer amazement. 
The air would be blue with his cuss words. And 
drink? He would carry more whisky under his 
belt and walk straighter than any man in our 
company. You should have seen the boys pony 
up on payday when the paymaster came rpund. 
He could skin us all, had us all euchered, and got 
half the money there was in the company. And 
say, chaplain, I taught him all he knew; taught 
him to drink, swear and gamble. Say, chaplain, 
in the fight in which I got this wound that will 
soon end my earthly career, that boy was shot 
dead at my side. Go call him back; let me undo 
the wrong I did that boy — then I'll pray" No 
road to yesterday — no way back to the lost op- 
portunity. God was departed from him and he 
knew it! 

Just facts, you know — not arguments — some- 
thing for you to think on, something to make you 



WORDS THAT BURN 19 

think, give you pause. Your soul is at stake—. 
for God's sake, THINK! 

A man lay dying in a little Kentucky town. 
A good member of the church- — but death came. 
His constant cry was, "I am lost." His wife said 
to their son, "Go, call the minister." And as 
he came in response to the call, she met him at 
the door and said, "Husband is always saying, 
'I am lost! I am lost!' It is just awful to hear 
him going on so." The preacher went to his 
side, listened to him, then said, "Oh, no; you 
are not lost ; you have been a pillar in the church. 
What would we have done without you? You 
have been a standby for years." But the dying 
church member kept on saying, "I am lost! I 
am lost!" The preacher went to the wife and 
said, "You must not mind What he says — he is 
delirious." But the dying man said, as he caught 
the words, "I am not delirious; you have been 
pastor so many years; that man at the foot of 
the bed has been my neighbor and friend for 
years; that woman was my wife's girlhood 
friend. Do not tell me I am delirious. I am lost ! 
lost! LOST!" Lost, and he knew it — and knew 
why! The Lord was departed. 

Sometime ago there was a church that received 
considerable support from an unsaved man who 



20 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

seemed to be much interested in the young folks 
of the community in which the church was lo- 
cated. Once there came a minister on the charge 
who wondered why he was so interested and yet 
never joined the church, nor gave any evidence 
of salvation. So he went to the man and asked 
him, "Why is it that you who so regularly give 
to the church, yet you never darken our doors, 
nor attend our meetings, nor make a profes- 
sion ?" The man looked him straight in the eyes, 
thanked him for the question, and answered: 
"Years ago, while I was a young man, the Spirit 
of God strove with me. I was under much con- 
viction — knew I ought to yield — but owing to 
this and that, I said 'NO' to God. He hft me. 
I am as surelv damned as if I were in heli this 
moment. I shall die just as I have lived. I am 
a lost and damned man. I give to the church 
to help the young folks. I do not want them to 
do as I did. Do all you can for the young; as 
for me, there is no hope. God has left me." He 
knew the awful fact, and he knew why! 

I was in Idaho preaching in a revival service 
that God owned, where souls were getting 
through to precious victory. There was a young 
man in the congregation one night who wanted 
to come to the altar — and could not. He had 



WORDS THAT BURN 21 

been in the meeting that was held the year be- 
fore. In that meeting he went to the altar, and 
an older brother came and took him away. This 
time he wanted to go to the altar; the brother 
who took him away the year before, wanted him 
to go; friends were asking him to go — but he 
could not — he was handcuffed to the sheriff. He 
had committed some crime for which he had 
been arrested, and was waiting in the meeting 
for the train to pass through that went to the ad- 
joining town, the county seat. One man at least 
who could not go to the altar whenever he wanted 
to. And you cannot get folks to pray with you any 
old time that you want them to. Sometimes God 
will not let them pray. Let me give you an in- 
stance: Mrs. Williams was a successful evan- 
gelist, owned of God in winning souls and much 
gifted in prayer. She came home one time, very 
tired after a series of meetings. She had put 
off her traveling dress, arrayed herself in a loose 
garment and was seated in her chair, thanking 
God for an opportunity to rest, when the door- 
bell rang and she was called to pray with a dying 
neighbor. She went to the house and entering 
was taken upstairs to a room where lay a man 
who was constantly crying, "Pray, oh, pray!" 
The mother said to Mrs. Williams, "Oh, do pray 



22 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

for him!" And she at once fell on her knees 
and tried to pray for the young man — but God 
shut her up — and she rose from her attitude, 
saying, "I cannot pray." The mother said, 
"Mrs. Williams, you hear his request. Oh, do 
pray for him !" And thus urged, she knelt again 
in prayer, but she had hardly begun when God 
shut her up, and she again said, "I cannot pray." 
She left the room and the last thing she heard 
was the distressful cry, "Oh, pray, pray, pray?' 
He died the next morning just before the dawn 
of day, and his last whisper was, "Oh, pray, pray, 
pray." But God would not let his servant, so 
gifted in prayer, utter one single petition. Why? 
Let me tell you. Years before he had been in 
a meeting where many young people were ask- 
ing for saints to pray for them, and he, with 
one other, had covenanted to ask for prayer never. 
But when the cold hand of death was feeling 
round his heartstrings, then he wanted someone 
to pray. But God has a long memory, and he 
would not let anyone pray for him. The Lord 
was departed from him — and he knew it. 

If the lost sinner was in his senses when he 
died, he would scream in agony of soul as he 
faces eternity without God. The great majority 
of people who die, die drugged. Ask any honest 



WORDS THAT BURN 23 

doctor, and he will tell you this is a fact. The 
chamber where the sinner meets his death would 
be an ante room of hell, were it not for the drug, 
the quieting medicine that you want given to 
them to relieve you as you see them suffer. In 
1892 a train was rushing on toward the World's 
Fair. Men were laughing, talking— merry in 
anticipation of the good times they were expect- 
ing at the great show, when a head-on collision 
occurred at Battle Creek, Mich., and twenty-six 
souls were hurried into eternity. Unexpected? 
Yes, but no more so than your's may be. At 
seventy heart-beats a minute you are rushing on 
towards eternity. At any minute your heart may 
stop beating, and then Where would you spend 
Eternity ? I saw this notice, or rather advertise- 
ment in the street car in Huntington, W. Va., 
one day. Read it : "If some folks could read the 
death notices that will be in the paper three 
months from now, they would take out life in- 
surance today." I at once thought, If some folks 
could read the death notices that will be in the 
paper three months from now, they would seek 
God now — at once. If that man reading this 
sermon now could read the death notices that 
will be in the paper three months from now — 



24 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

yes, one month from now — he would mind God 
and seek God now. Are you the one? 

Lost forever, eternally lost 

Living in time, but the dead line crossed — 

Lost to God, to hope and grace, 

Never to see an angel face. 

Never to know of joy in Heaven, 
Never to know of sins forgiven, 
Always to know closed is the door, 
And hope has fled for evermore. 

Naught but anguish and terror and pain, 
Crying for mercy, but ever in vain ; 
The groans of the lost the music of hell, 
And naught to break the awful spell. 

Moving to meet thee, hell from beneath, 
Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; 
Groanings and shriekings and cries of despair, 
Regrets unavailing, the lost everywhere. 

Lost forever, ever and more, 
Closed forever probation's door; 
Lake of fire, the second death, 
Now spent in vain is praying breath. 



II 

MASTERS OF CIRCUMSTANCES 

"Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in 
him; and he shall bring it to pass/' Psa. 37:5. 

I believe that it is every man's privilege to be 
bigger than circumstances. I pity the man who 
is so weak that he allows circumstances to defeat 
him. I believe that the man who is yoked up 
with God — and any man may be thus yoked — 
the devil, or hell, or the world, or circumstances, 
or all combined, cannot defeat that man. I am 
confident that God never appointed us to defeat. 
I believe we were chosen to be holy. To be holy 
means to be conqueror. "How can two walk 
together except they be agreed ?" The man that 
walks with God has the best company heaven 
can afford, and hell trembles in his presence. I 
am somewhat of the faith of a little boy, who 
one time knelt at his grandma's knees to pray, 
and after he went through the usual prayer that 
he had been taught, he kept on praying for quite 
a while; and when he rose from his knees his 



26 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

grandma said, "Child, what made you pray so 
long?" He said, "Well, you know, grandma, we 
sing, 'The devil trembles when he sees the weak- 
est saint upon his knees/ and I thought I would 
give him a good shaking." I believe that to be true. 
It is certainly Scriptural that a man who is yoked 
up with God is bound to be a conqueror — master 
of circumstances, master of the situation, and at 
last when he passes through all the afflictions of 
this world, and enters through the pearly gates, 
the angels of heaven will delight to do him honor, 
because he has been made conqueror through the 
blood of Jesus Christ. Now, you can dip your 
brush in the darkest colors that hell can afford; 
you can paint the darkest picture that human 
agency can paint, or that a carnal mind or a man 
deeply agitated in sorrow can possibly paint, and 
when you have gotten through I want to dip my 
brush in the colors of Calvary and write over it 
all, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleans- 
eth us from all sin." I believe that God can, 
that God will bless the man that walks with him, 
and He will make him conqueror. 
Listen to the poet: 

"I cannot do it alone, 

The waves run fast and high 

The fogs close chill around, 



WORDS THAT BURN 27 

The lights go out in the sky, 
But I know in the end we two shall win, 
Jesus and I. 

"Coward and wayward and weak, 
I change with the changing sky, 
Today so strong and brave, 
Tomorrow too weak to fly. 
But He never gives in — so we two shall win — 
Jesus and I." 

That makes me master, that makes me con- 
queror, that assures me that all the way down 
to the end I shall be more than conqueror through 
Him that hath loved me. "Well," but you say, 
"Brother KJulp, are not we sometimes defeated?" 
Yes, but it is our own fault. Perhaps we did 
not call in reinforcements quick enough ; perhaps 
we were rather slow in remembering the prom- 
ises of God. But listen: If you were once de- 
feated, why should you stay defeated? We are 
in the battle, we are human, we are subject to 
infirmities, the enemy goes about as a roaring 
lion seeking whom he may devour; but listen 
to this: There is no need of your trembling; 
when you are trembling it shows you need the 
anointed eyes. That old prophet went out one 
time and the enemies were gathered all around 
him, and there was a young man with him from 



28 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

the school of the prophets, who seeing the great 
crowd around him began trembling, and he 
shook like an aspen leaf. The old prophet said, 
"Lord, open his eyes !" And when his eyes were 
opened he saw what the old prophet had seen 
all the time — the hilltops were crowded with 
horses and chariots of fire. He that is for us 
is greater than all that can be against us. 
Brother, sister, do not be discouraged! I am 
here this afternoon to tell you that faith unites 
a man with Omnipotence and makes him bigger 
than any circumstances that can be gathered 
around him. Now, I want to prove it. We will 
have a class-meeting with a lot of saints together 
like they used to have. When I was a boy I 
went to class-meeting with father and mother, 
and an old leader would come around among 
them, a man of Christian experience, and he 
would go to each one separately and say, 
"Brother, how is your soul today ?" And that 
old saint would get up — or a young saint, as it 
may be — and tell how he was getting along in his 
soul. He did not talk about the years gone by; 
did not say God's Word was true and he believed 
it, but he just held up one bunch of grapes after 
another, one bunch of pomegranates after an- 
other, and then declared he was in the land and 



WORDS THAT BURN 29 

had the fruits. Say, I like the old-fashioned 
Methodist class-meetings. I believe in class- 
meetings this afternoon, and we will have one. 
I am going to ask the mother of Moses to stand 
up and testify. Listen! This preacher has de- 
clared this afternoon that faith in God will make 
you master of circumstances. Women have been 
encouraged by your faith in the days gone by, and 
I want to ask you to give your testimony. "1 
was a mother and God gave me one of the finest 
boys that was ever given to a mother. The king 
of Egypt made a decree that all the children of 
Israel should be put to death, and I remembered 
the promise that had been made unto Abraham, 
and after prayer I made an ark and daubed it 
with the slime of the river, and then I launched 
that ark out on the bosom, of the Nile." 

"What! did you put that ark with the child 
in it out on the river Nile?" "No, no; I launched 
it out on the promise of God; and there came a 
day when the daughter of the king came down 
to the river to bathe, and she saw the ark among 
the flags, and when she had opened it and saw 
the weeping baby, she had compassion on it. She 
decided to keep it and that she would have a 
Hebrew nurse for it; so they came and called 
me for that purpose. Thus, by the Providence 



30 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

of God my own baby was restored to me." Faith 
in God makes us master of circumstances. 

Well, do you want to hear from Moses? 
Moses, I want you to testify this afternoon. Will 
faith in God make a man master of circum- 
stances? And I see Moses, the old lawgiver of 
Israel, the man who had all the learning of the 
Egyptians, the man who was reared in Pharaoh's 
court — I see him stand up there and I hear him 
testify, and he says: "There came a time when 
I had to choose between a throne and a race of 
slaves ; I had to choose between being the son of 
Pharaoh's daughter and casting in my lot with 
an army of slaves. I looked upon the backs of 
the slaves, and there were the scars of the task 
masters ; but I remembered the promise that God 
had made, and I esteemed the reproaches of 
Christ greater riches than all the treasures of 
Egypt, and I cast in my lot with the people of 
God." Did it pay? "Let me tell you; forty 
days I was shut in with the Infinite and He let 
me sit in His presence and He talked to me, and 
at last there came a time when I should die, but 
I did not die the ordinary death; my soul said 
goodbye to the body and I went up to be with 
the redeemed. ,, Hallelujah ! Faith in God makes 
a man master of circumstances. 



WORDS THAT BURN 31 

Well, here is a man from Uz; an old white- 
bearded patriarch — I want to hear from him. 
Job, Job, will faith in God make a man master 
of circumstances ? Job can hardly talk for shout- 
ing. He gets up and begins to testify : "I have 
proven the thing to be true all in one day; a 
messenger came to me and said, 'The oxen were 
plowing, and the Sabeans fell upon them and 
took them away; yea, they have slain all the 
servants with the edge of the sword; and I only 
am escaped to tell thee/ He had not gotten 
through speaking when another messenger came 
and said, 'The fire of God is fallen from heaven, 
and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, 
and consumed them ; and I only am escaped to tell 
thee/ Before he had finished speaking another 
messenger came and said, 'The Chaldeans made 
out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and 
have carried them away, yea, and slain the 
servants with the edge of the sword; and I only 
am escaped to tell thee/ While he was 
still speaking there came another and said, 'Thy 
sons and thy daughters were eating and drink- 
ing wine in their eldest brother's house : And, be- 
hold, there came a great wind from the wilder- 
ness, and smote the four corners of the house, 
and it fell upon the young men, and they are 



32 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

dead ; and I only am escaped to tell thee' " 
But, Job, I want to ask you: Does faith in God 
make a man master of circumstances? What did 
you do that day? "I lifted my hands and my eyes 
to heaven and I said, 'Naked came I out of my 
mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither : 
The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away ; bless- 
ed be the name of the Lord/ " Oh, brother, 
faith in God makes a man master of circum- 
stances ! 

And that is not all. Here is a man I think 
a great deal of and I want to get him in this 
class-meeting. Daniel, I want to ask you, will 
faith in God make a man master of circum- 
stances ? And old Daniel gets up and says, "I was 
in the land of captivity; I was far away from 
home, my people had hung their harps on the 
willows, and we very seldom heard the song of 
rejoicing. When we exhorted them to sing they 
would say, 'How can I sing the songs of God 
in this land of captivity?' Then my enemies 
went and had an edict passed and said that if a 
man should pray to the God of heaven he should 
be cast into the lions' den; and I kept my win- 
dows up and prayed three times a day, and they 
took me and cast me into the lions' den, and 
there I slept all night, but the king passed the 



WORDS THAT BURN 33 

night without sleep, and came to the mouth of 
the lion's den very early the next morning and 
said, 'O Daniel, servant of the living God, is 
thy God whom thou servest continually, able to 
deliver thee from the lions?' And I shouted, 
'My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the 
lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me.' " 
Hallelujah! Faith in God makes a man master 
of circumstances. 

Say, let us get this little fellow up. He has 
sore eyes ; nothing very attractive about this fel- 
low, but every time he testifies the saints catch 
fire. Oh, I want you to look at him! Paul, I 
have made this proposition to this congregation, 
that faith in God will make a man master of the 
situation. And I see Paul, who has been many 
years on the way, has been shipwrecked five 
times, has had forty stripes save one laid on 
him, and I want you to be very still now, while 
Paul testifies. Paul gets up and says: "Forty 
men took an oath that they would not eat nor 
drink until they had taken my life — and, halle- 
lujah! I do not know where they are, but I am 
here! And I was out on an old ship, and for 
days the sun and stars and moon were not seen, 
and every sail was gone, and the sailors had lost 
all heart and were wanting to put the prisoners 



34 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

to death; and when everything was the darkest 
I threw my arms around the old mast and said, 
'I believe God/ " Oh, hallelujah ! When every- 
thing is dark, faith says, "I will make you master 
of circumstances." 

Isaac Watts, thou poet of Methodism, will 
faith in God make a man master of circum- 
stances ? Isaac is accustomed to giving his testi- 
mony in song: 

"Thy saints in all this glorious war 
Shall conquer though they die, 

They see the triumph from afar, 
By faith they bring it nigh." 

Charles Wesley also sings his testimony: 

"Thou, oh Christ art all I want 
More than all in Thee I find." 

Hallelujah! "More than all in thee I find/' 

I know of a preacher who has been in Africa 
the greater part of his life. Alongside of him 
has been an educated woman, his wife. They 
both came out of the finest circles of Christian 
society. When he was home for a short time 
someone asked him concerning his going back 
to Africa, and he said, "Wife and I are going 
back to our black friends; we are going so far 
into the interior that we will never see a white 



WORDS THAT BURN 35 

face again. We are going to live and die not 
only for Africa but in Africa, and we are doing 
\t for Jesus' sake." Faith in God made that man 
master of circumstances. 

I was at the Springfield camp in Ohio, and on 
missionary day there was a man there that was 
asked to talk, and I looked at that fellow and I 
thought to myself, "Are they going to put that 
fellow up to talk?" He did not look as though he 
knew an adverb from a shad, but they put him up 
and he began to talk, and I wish you had heard 
him. It was not five minutes until he was rub- 
bing his eyes and was getting blessed, and had 
everybody else blessed. That fellow came from 
India and every day on his way he wrote a letter, 
and after he got here he mailed them all ; and in 
the last letter he wrote he said to his wife, "I 
have something to tell you that will make your 
heart laugh: when I come back to India I come 
back not only to live in India, but to die in 
India." 

We can lose sight of big automobiles, big din- 
ners, big churches, friends and hosts of friends 
when Jesus Christ fills our vision. Oh, brother, 
I pity the man whose vision can be filled by a 
man. I pity the man who cannot see anything 
else but the Apostolic Holiness Church; I pity 



36 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

the man that cannot see anything else but the 
Methodist, the Baptist, or the Presbyterian 
Church. Now, wait; do not misunderstand me. 
I believe everybody ought to belong to a church 
and stand by it; but there never was a church 
that was big enough to fill the vision of a man 
who has once had a glimpse of Jesus — I do not 
believe in glimpses of Him either. An old man 
who was dying was asked, "Do you get a glimpse 
of Jesus ?" He said, "Away with glimpses! For 
forty years I have had a full look!" Glory be 
to God! Glad I have a full look, brother. Oh, 
glory be to heaven's King ! I want to thank God 
for my experience this afternoon. Jesus Christ 
satisfies me abundantly, abundantly, abundantly! 
Glory be to God forever! Hallelujah! Hallelu- 
jah! Satisfied in Jesus, and with Jesus, and ex- 
pect to be satisfied eternally ! Expect to keep on 
growing! My soul is bigger today than it ever 
was, and I expect to keep on growing through 
the eternal ages. God is going to give me an 
increased capacity that will help adapt me. 
Glory be to God! I cannot tell you what there 
is before me, but by the grace of God I am going 
every step of the way to find out. God said to 
the people of Israel before they got to Canaan, 
"I will give you a land that flows with milk and 



WORDS THAT BURN 37 

honey; I will give you houses you did not build, 
and I will give you wells you did not dig," and 
glory be to heaven's King, I am headed for the 
land where there is a mansion I did not build, 
where there is a fountain I did not strike. I am 
going, I am going to take possession! Hallelu- 
jah! I am glad I am in the class-meeting. Hal- 
lelujah ! Glory be to our God! Let all the people 
say, Amen! 

Well, now, wait a moment! Somebody says, 
"Brother Kulp, that is the experience I want." 
Well, my text tells you how to get it. "Commit 
thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and 
he shall bring it to pass." "Well," somebody 
says, "I have been to the altar, and I have com- 
mitted and did not get anything." Brother, you 
did not commit, and I want to say to you on the 
line of thought that our dear brother had this 
morning, you cannot commit without you do 
certain things before. What are they? First, 
you have to admit. Admit what? "Lord, I am a 
sinner — I am unworthy ; Lord, I am the vilest of 
the vile ; Lord, if I had my deserts I would go to 
hell. I am a sinner, I have sinned against light, 
I have sinned against knowledge, I have cruci- 
fied the Son of God." You have to admit. That 
is the first thing. Admit. Now, follow me, what 



38 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

is the next thing? Submit. "Oh, I do not want 
to submit." I will tell you that is the trouble 
with us; we are too stiff, we are too proud, we 
do not like to submit ourselves unto God. You 
submit yourself to man. Listen! I buy a rail- 
road ticket, I take that piece of pasteboard, I 
walk into a car, and I sit down and submit myself 
to the conductor and the brakeman and the en- 
gineer, and the foreman. I submit myself. I 
do not run the train ; I do not try to. The great 
trouble with people now-a-days is that there are 
so many who are trying to run the train. I came 
from Pilot Point, Texas, to Texarkana, and 
when I got on the train I said to the conductor, 
"I want to get the Cotton Belt for Memphis." 
He took my ticket and punched it and said, "All 
you have to do is to sit still and we will do the 
rest." And all I have to do now is to commit 
my way unto the Lord and He will do the rest. 
I have committed myself and I am riding. Hal- 
lelujah! I am riding! A fellow was one time 
walking on a railroad track, and a station man 
came along and said, "You have no right to walk 
on this track." He said, "I have," and he pulled 
out a railroad ticket. The man said to him, 
"You are a fool; that is not a ticket to walk — 
that is a ticket to ride." A great many people 



WORDS THAT BURN 39 

do not seem to understand we have a ticket to 
ride. No, we will not submit; we want to boss. 
I want to say this, that whenever a man gets the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost all the desire to boss 
is taken out of him. There is a man I respect 
very highly. My shoes needed blacking. He 
said, "I will black them for you." I said, "I will 
black my own shoes." "No, I will black them; 
I want to get a blessing." Well, you can have 
your choice, washing the saints feet or blacking 
their shoes — I do not care which. Man has to 
admit, then submit, and then what? Commit. 
If you have admitted and submitted, then commit. 
What does that mean? Abandon yourself to 
God. We have some Holiness people that tell 
you that consecration is not a condition of sanc- 
tification, but I stand here to say it is. They say, 
"Oh, you folks are consecrating over the old 
man !" But, God bless you, if anything will put 
the old man to death and mortify him, it is when 
you abandon yourself to the Holy Ghost. I de- 
clare unto you I have no will of my own now-a- 
days; I have handed it over to God, and have 
told Him His will is mine, and I tell you this 
afternoon that my experience is, that all I have 
to know is, what God wants me to do, and I 
will do it. Commit yourself, abandon yourself 



4 o THE DEPARTED LORD, o*, 

unto God. Then what, after you admit, submit 
and commit? Then God will remit. Did you 
ever get any remittances? One time there was 
an old lady bowing in prayer, saying, "I have 
not a bite of bread nor a bite of meat in the 
house, but Lord, I am trusting you." And there 
were some wicked boys heard her and went to 
the store and got some bread and meat and 
threw it into the house, and the old lady said, 
"Oh, God, I thank you for sending me some 
bread and meat." The boys came in and said, 
"Oh, Auntie, you need not thank God for that; 
we are the ones who brought it." "Oh," she 
said, "God sent it, but the devil brought it." A 
remittance from heaven. 

What is our remittance? First, pardon. Has 
it come this afternoon ? Second, purity. I want 
to ask you, have you received the Holy Ghost? 
Did you admit, submit, commit and get the 
remittance f Is this text true? "Commit thy 
way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He 
shall bring it to pass?" 



WORDS THAT BURN 41 



III 

GATHER NOT MY SOUL WITH SINNERS 

"Gather not my soul with sinners." (Psalm 
26:9.) 

When one preaches, and the stenographer is 
taking down every word that is uttered, one 
ought to be very careful what one says; and 
when we remember that God hears, God takes 
note, God makes record of every word that we 
utter, we ought to be careful, for we will have 
to meet it at the Judgment Seat of Christ. We 
ought to be very careful what we think; we 
ought to be very careful how we hear ; we ought 
to remember that Jesus once said to the messen- 
gers that He sent out, "He that heareth you, 
heareth me; and he that rejecteth you, rejecteth 
me; and he that rejecteth me, rejecteth him that 
sent me." 

I want to bring you a message from God, 
from His own Word. The infidel denies the 
Christian revelation; the agnostic stands with 



42 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

the future before him, and says, "We do not 
know"; but the man who believes the Word of 
God — and every man and woman ought to pay 
attention to it — learns this lesson, gets this great 
truth, that out in the beyond there is an eternal 
future. We look backward, and there is dura- 
tion that never began; we look forward, and 
there is duration that never will end. In that 
future there are rewards. The Word of God 
teaches it. In the Sermon on the Mount/Jesus, 
when He had taken His place in front of that 
multitude, opened His mouth, and taught them, 
saying — listen to it! "He that heareth my 
words, and doeth them, I will liken him to a man 
who built his house upon the rock; and the 
winds blew, and the floods came, and the rains 
descended and beat upon that house: and it fell 
not; for it was founded upon a rock. But he that 
heareth my sayings, and doeth them not, I will 
liken him to a man which built his house upon 
the sand: the floods came, the winds blew, the 
rains descended and beat upon that house; and 
it fell : and great was the fall of it." 

Eternal Destiny Fixed by Present Actions 

Your future throughout eternity will be the 
logical consequence of your actions here. Jesus 



WORDS THAT BURN 43 

Christ teaches us in this Word : "Behold, I come 
quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every 
man according as his work shall be" The beg- 
gar died and was carried by the angels to a place 
of rest; the rich man died and in hell he lifted 
up his eyes, being in torment. There is a here- 
after. There is a future, and every man in that 
future will reap just exactly as he sows. Listen 
to the Apostle : "For me to live is Christ ; to die 
is gain." "Having a desire to depart and be with 
Christ, which is far better." This Book says 
Abraham, Aaron, Mpses, were gathered unto 
their fathers. Not where they were buried ; back 
yonder beyond the Euphrates lay their ancestors. 

It meant something more than that — gathered 
where they were over yonder! Job says, "The 
rich man shall die, but not be gathered." Listen 
to my text : "Gather not my soul with sinners." 
What does that imply ? That over yonder sinners 
will be gathered together. They will be associ- 
ated together. They will go to one place. Judas 
killed himself, and went to his own place — the 
place that he had fitted himself for. Men get 
what is coming to them. God is eternally just, 
and what you sow in this life, just as sure as that 
old Bible is true, you will reap hereafter. 



44 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Hell, the Slum of the: Universe 
''Separate me from the sinners; gather me not 
with the sinners." What does that imply? Listen 
to it! Hell! Hell is the slum of the universe. 
I have been down at George Street Mission be- 
fore the saints down there prayed away and out 
so many of the saloons, when it was as evil as 
the gutters of Hell. The "Red Light" district is 
everything that is vile, everything that is foul, 
everything that is unclean. Hell is the slum of 
the universe; devils, angels that kept not their 
first estate, which were cast down from the pres- 
ence of God, to be reserved in chains of darkness 
unto the judgment of the great day — angels 
fallen, demons, dark spirits, the damned of all 
ages, all the unclean, all the foul, all the filthy, 
all the sorcerers, all the whoremongers, all the 
adulterers, all the liars, all the incestuous — ev- 
erything that God hates gathered out of the uni- 
verse of God, cornered up in Hell, with a door 
that never opens outward, with God Almighty 
writing "Eternity" across the bar — shut in 
there forever. And as I hear their groans, as I 
hear the cries of the lost, as I hear the shouts of 
devils, as I hear the damned weeping and wailing 
and gnashing their teeth, as I hear the cries of 
remorse, and despair, and anguish, and know it 



WORDS THAT BURN 45 

is eternal, I join with the Psalmist and pray, "O 
Lord, gather not my soul with sinners/' Listen, 
men and women! There are only two places; 
there is an eternal Heaven, and there is an eter- 
nal Hell, and every soul in the sound of my voice 
tonight, every person here is headed toward an 
eternal Heaven or an eternal Hell, and if tonight 
your heart should stop beating, if tonight you 
should cease to breathe, you would go to the 
place you are fitted for. Not that God did not 
love you; not that Christ did not die for you; 
not that the Holy Ghost did not strive with you ; 
not that saints did not pray for you; not that 
you never heard the truth of God: but, because 
"ye would not" — because "ye zvould not." Going 
toward eternity seventy heart beats a minute — 
going to an eternal Heaven or an eternal Hell. 
"Gather not my soul with sinners." 

Under the Curse of God 

Now, again. Hell is not only the slum of the 
universe, but those that are there live under the 
curse of Almighty God. I want you to get it. 
"God is angry with the wicked every day." A 
penitent sinner can make the heavens bend — and 
God will incline His ear. God stepped all the 



46 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

way from the council chambers of the Eternal, 
down to where at Bethlehem's plains He robed 
Himself in mortal flesh in order to save man. God 
smiles upon us here. The sun shines and the rain 
falls on the just and on the unjust. The winds 
blow, the sun shines, the grain waves for them, 
the cheek of the fruit is colored by the sun and 
wind for their benefit. They have Calvary, they 
have Olivet, they have the Mediatorial Throne, 
they have the pleading Holy Spirit, they have the 
minister, they have the Word of God. Some of 
them have a mother's prayers. But listen! In 
eternity God never smiles on the sinner — God 
never, never, never smiles on the sinner! The 
wrath of God rests upon the lost forever and 
ever and ever, and every unsaved man and 
woman here tonight, every praying mother's son 
who is unsaved, every girl who is going into 
eternity over a mother's prayers, over a father's 
prayers, over the blood of Jesus Christ, over the 
strivings of the Holy Ghost — say, beloved, listen ! 
In Hell you will lift up your eyes, being in tor- 
ment, with the wrath of God upon you, and to 
last throughout all eternity. And as I think of 
it, and as I pray over it, and as I weep over it, I 
say, "O God, gather not my soul with sinners." 
Another thought. To aggravate all the terrors 



WORDS THAT BURN 47 

and all the horrors of Hell, falling upon one's 
ear is only one sound, that of blasphemy, swear- 
ing. The lost curse each other ; they curse God ; 
they curse Jesus ; they curse the Holy Ghost ; they 
curse themselves ; they curse their lost opportuni- 
ties ; they bite their lips ; they chew their tongues ; 
they gnash their teeth; they walk on the redhot 
pavements of an eternal hell, and they cry, I'm 
lost, I'm lost, Vm LOST 7/ The only music they 
ever hear is the groans of the damned. The only 
water they ever drink is the tears of the lost. The 
only prayers they ever offer are never, never, 
never answered. O God, "gather not my soul 
with sinners !" Who are the damned ? The peo- 
ple who did what you are doing, sinner; reject- 
ing Jesus Christ, grieving the Holy Ghost, going 
into eternity with your feet speckled, spotted, red 
with the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, that you 
despised and trampled upon. And then, memory 
aggravates all the horrors of the damned. Men 
will remember, "I might have been saved; Christ 
died for me, the Spirit of God pled with me, 
mother prayed for me, men of God preached to 
me, friends exhorted me to give my heart to God ; 
but I would not, I would not !" Say, listen, sin- 
ner! How will you ever stand it? 



48 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

The Unceasing Groans of Hell 
Up in the hospital in our city there is a long 
corridor, and on each side of the corridor are 
rooms ; in each one of these rooms a patient, some 
undergoing operations, some of them facing 
death. Here at one room is a glass partition. On 
the other side of the partition there lies a woman. 
She is going to die. The doctors say they cannot 
help her. Oh, how she groans with pain, with 
the suffering, with the heartaches. On this side 
of the partitions there are other patients. They 
say, "Please shut that door. I cannot stand that 
woman's groans. Oh, for God's sake, please shut 
that door." That woman died during the night. 
One of the patients said, "I don't hear her groan. 
Where is she?" Oh, her groans are silenced at 
last! She died last night. But when you have 
been ten million years in Hell, and the groans 
of the lost and the damned have fallen upon your 
ears, they will never cease, and you never, never 
never can get used to it. There will never come 
a time when they can say to you, "Those groans 
are silenced," for in Hell they never die. May 
God wake us up. We are facing eternity, facing 
an eternal Heaven or an eternal Hell. 

Jesus appealed to men's memories. Listen to 
what He says at the Judgment Seat : "I was sick, 



WORDS THAT BURN 49 

and ye visited me not; I was in prison, and ye 
came not unto me; I was hungry, and ye gave 
me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no 
drink." Listen! In eternity, when you stand 
at the Judgment Seat of Christ, God will appeal to 
your memory. The books of remembrance will 
be opened, and God will say, "I sent you a man 
of God. He gave you a Gospel sermon, and you 
rejected. I gave My Son to die for you, and 
you crucified Him afresh. I sent the Holy Ghost, 
and you said, 'Go Thy way ; when I want You, I 
will call for You.' " Oh, the horrors ! the hor- 
rors that will aggravate a lost soul when it re- 
members how it trampled the blood of Jesus 
Christ under foot, and rejected Blood-bought op- 
portunities! "Son, remember, thou in thy life- 
time hadst thy good things." You had camp- 
meetings, you had Bibles, you had conviction, you 
had example, you had Blood-bought, Providen- 
tial opportunities, and "ye zvould not." Oh, the 
horrors of the damned! Oh, the agonies of the 
lost! "I am damned, I am lost, and it is my 
fault." O God, I pray, gather not the souls of 
this congregation with the souls of sinners! I 
do not wonder the Psalmist prayed that way. 
"Gather not my soul with sinners." 



50 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

They Never Sleep in Hell 
Again, here you can drown your memory with 
drink. There are no saloons in Hell. You can 
get drunk here. You can drink over bars legal- 
ized by the help of church members who voted 
for license for fear their taxes would be raised. 
But listen ! You cannot get drunk in Hell ! You 
can have so much business here, and so devote 
yourself to business you will forget other things, 
you will forget important things. They don't do 
any business in Hell. Here is the place to do 
business. God says, "Occupy till I come." The 
root meaning of that word, "occupy" is, "do 
business." Do business; do it for God; do it 
for eternity; do it for your own soul. But in 
Hell they do not do any business. All they do is 
to weep and wail, and gnash their teeth, and bite 
their lips, and shed tears, and regret the past, 
and roll and revel in remorse and despair. But 
they never do business in Hell. You can sin all 
day, you can violate the laws of God, you can 
take the name of God in vain, you can chew to- 
bacco, you can drink whisky, and then you can 
lie down at night and sleep, and forget it all ; but, 
beloved, they never sleep in Hell. It is dark — it 
is dark all the time, it is worse than Egyptian 
darkness, it is darkness that the soul feels; but 



WORDS THAT BURN 51 

no matter how dark it is, they cannot sleep. The 
liquid waves of eternal fire dash against the walls 
that confine the damned, and keep on roaring 
throughout eternity. The wicked, the lost, never, 
never, never sleep in Hell. 

Look at this fellow sitting down here. He is 
thinking. Oh, he is thinking! He says, "My 
thoughts will drive me to distraction. I am so 
distracted by my thoughts I cannot do business. 
My wife knows there is something the matter 
with me. The children know there is something 
the matter with 'Daddy/ My thoughts will drive 
me to distraction/' One day he goes down to the 
hardware store and buys an automatic revolver. 
He goes home, goes into his room, pulls out his 
revolver (I am giving you an actual fact), he 
goes into his room where his wife is sleeping, 
shoots her through the forehead, and then he 
puts the revolver to his own brain — in order to 
keep from thinking. He falls dead, his soul ^oes 
out into eternity — and he is thinking yet. "Gath- 
er not my soul with sinners !" All eternity in 
which to think! Reaping what they sowed. 

Etkrnal Doom 

Now, another thought: The sinner in Hell 
knows his doom is eternal, fixed. 



52 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

I visited the State Penitentiary at Trenton, N. 
J. I went there with a friend of mine who at 
one time was employed in the Institution. We 
walked along the corridor and came to where a 
door was shut, but there was a small opening. 
He said to me, "George, look in here," and he 
tapped and a man inside opened a little door not 
much larger than my hand. I looked in, and saw 
a man there about forty-five or fifty years of age. 

After I came away, M!r. said to me, 

"George, he is in there for life. In a moment of 
passion he took a knife and killed a boy who 
tantalized and angered him/' But listen! In 
there the man has some hope. The Governor 
may relent, friends may intercede, they may say, 
"He has been there long enough." But, listen! 
In Hell the sinner knows his doom is eternally 
fixed, never can be changed, never any hope — 
never, never, n£ve;r can hope that he will die and 
the thing end. 

A woman lay dying with a cancer. She said, 
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Let me die! Oh! Oh! Husband, 
kill me! kill me! kill me! I cannot stand it!" 
That husband went to a doctor. He said, "Doc- 
tor, I want to ask you a question. In God's name, 
is there any hope for her?" "No, sir; she is go- 
ing to die." "Doctor, in God's name, go over 



WORDS THAT BURN 53 

there and give her something that will shorten 
her sufferings, give her something that will help 
her out of the body." He went over there. He 
injected something into her arm. He said, "In 
two or three hours she will be over all her suffer- 
ings." And in two hours all was over. But 
when amid waves of liquid fire that roar and dash 
themselves against the precincts that confine the 
damned, there will never, never, never come a 
time when anyone can come that way and cause 
your sufferings to cease. You will groan, you 
will cry, you will pray, you will agonize, you 
will sufler, you will be remorseful, you will be 
filled with despair, regret; but there will never, 
never, never come a time when it will cease, un- 
til God Almighty Himself dies — and He will 
never die. "Gather" — O God! — "Gather not 
my soui, with sinners!" 

Which Way Are You Headed? 

Which way are you headed tonight? Seventy 
heart beats a minute, going toward an eternal 
Hell or an eternal Heaven. A few more heart 
beats, you will go across the line. A few more 
heart beats, and probation will end. A few more 
heart beats, mercy will be dethroned. A few 
more heart beats, no more sermons. A few more 



54 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

heart beats, no mourners' benches. A few more 
heart beats, no altar calls. A few more heart 
beats, God Almighty Himself will shut the 
door and you will be shut out for ever and ever 
and ever. O God, help this dying congregation 
tonight, facing eternity! 

When the Titanic went down there were six- 
teen hundred people on board, and the lifeboats 
could not take them. The stern began to sink 
lower and lower, and lower in the water. 
The people ran up toward the bow and 
got up to the farther end. Still she 
went down, lower, and lower, and lower, and the 
lifeboats pulled away for fear of the suction. 
Those who were near said that when that vessel 
took the last surge and went down, from sixteen 
hundred souls went up one awful wail of despair, 
and they said, "I never want to hear the like of 
that again/' They only heard it for five minutes 
— they only heard it, perhaps, for three minutes ; 
but in Hell they hear the like through all eternity 
— the cry that is going up from the lost, the cry 
of anguish and despair that is going up from 
the lost, and going up forever and forever. 

Now, again. We say no change, no respite in 
Hell, no let up — a living death. Now wait a mo- 
ment. After you have had everything that the 



WORDS T HAT BURN 55 

world offers — if the devil himself could give you 
the kingdoms of this world, and you had them 
all, if you had them all, if you had bought all its 
pleasures, gratified every passion, if you had 
satiated every appetite, and then should go down 
and make your bed with the devils damned in 
Hell, I want to ask you a question, What shall it 
profit? 

God in His mercy sent some angels, and said, 
"Go down to Sodom and get Lot out of there." 
And they went down, and Lot was too slow for 
them. An angel took hold of one arm, and an- 
other angel of the other arm, and said, "Haste 
thee, get out for your life. I cannot do anything 
while you are here." Why couldn't he? Because 
off there Abraham was praying. "Get out of 
here ; escape for thy life !" And then the fire de- 
scended. The wrath of God is hovering over a 
world that crucified His Son. God in His mercy 
sends the Holy Ghost, and He sends the Word 
of God, and the Word on one side, and the Holy 
Ghost on the other, are saying, "Escape for thy 
life!" 



56 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 



IV 
ACCORDING TO WORKS 

"The Lord shall reward the doer of evil ac- 
cording to his wickedness" (2 Sam. 3:39). 

"Treasuring up wrath against the day of 
wrath" (Rom. 2:5). 

If we thought more on eternal verities, we 
would behave ourselves better. If we would re- 
member God, many persons would be troubled. 
If we would take God at His Word, that we shall 
be judged according to the deeds done in the 
body, we would be more careful about our doing. 
The Empress of Austria saw her Cabinet fearful, 
her troops defeated, her generals disheartened, 
and France robbing her of one of her fairest 
provinces. She realized the injustice of the thing, 
and said to the French commander: "My lord, 
God does not settle every Saturday night, but 
God always settles/' That is eminently true. 
We ought to have it burnt in on our memory, on 
our conscience, God always settles. The Old 
Testament and the New agree, He will reward 



WORDS THAT, BURN 57 

the doer of evil according to his wickedness. "Be 
not deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap." We may 
be dealing with men, we may be dealing with 
finite creatures, we may be for awhile creatures 
of time; but eternity is before us, and we will 
settle with God according to the records we have 
made. God is pressing it home upon us. We are 
forgetful. We are light. We are trifling. We 
are jesting. We are satisfied with the name on 
the church record. We are satisfied with going 
to church and to meeting once on Sunday — if it 
does not rain. We are satisfied with a pretension, 
a professon, with a fireless ^experience. Biit, 
listen to this: It means much to live. People 
talk about it being a solemn thing to die. To die 
is easy. It is a solemn thing to live. We are 
living for eternity. The finest epigram in the 
English language was written by Doddridge: 

" 'Live while you live,' the epicure would say, 

Enjoy the pleasures of the passing day ; 

'Live while you live/ the sacred preacher cries, 

'And give to God each moment as it flies/ 

Lord, in my view let both united be, 

I live in pleasure when I live for Thee." 

It is a wonderful thing to remember that we 
are living for God. The apostle said, "For me 



58 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

to live is Christ; for me to die is gain." But 
let us get it home to ourselves. We do not have 
to look back to a sentiment, to a truth uttered 
nineteen centuries ago. How are we living? 
What impress are we making upon the world 
around us? What are we doing to help Jesus 
Christ? It is an old proverb, "God loves to be 
helped," and I want to say it reverently, God 
cannot do without us. Down at Ocean Grove, 
General Grant, my old commander, was on the 
platform, in that great big tabernacle, and it was 
crowded with thousands of people. A man who 
had been a private soldier in the old Army of 
the Potomac in Colonel Perry's old New York 
regiment, now a Methodist preacher (Its officers 
were most all Methodist preachers and its pri- 
vates Methodists), introduced Grant, and when 
he introduced him, he said, "We could not have 
done without him, and he could not have done 
without us." That was true. Now, I want to 
say it reverently, God, in accordance with His 
plan of salvation and the economy of grace, can- 
not do without us. He says, "Lo, I am with 
you. Go ye," and when a man who was glori- 
ously saved, clothed and in his right mind, out 
from among tombstones, came when Jesus was 
about to depart, and said, "I want to go with 



WORDS THAT BURN 59 

Thee/' Jesus said to him, "Go to thjr home and 
tell them what great things God hath done for 
thee." What are you telling? What are you 
doing? There are some people that never shout 
anywhere else than at the "Mount of Bless- 
ings." Some people never do any shouting at 
home. Some people never shout before the gro- 
cer, and the baker, and the shoemaker. How 
are you living at home? I was thinking this 
afternoon when our brother was giving his ex- 
hortation, when men dropped down here on their 
knees, if the men and women in this congrega- 
tion who profess to be saved and sanctified, who 
say they have received the baptism with the Holy 
Ghost, would have their Pentecost, if they were 
on their knees before God in prayer as much as 
they are talking around on this camp ground, 
this place would be awful with the Divine Pres- 
ence. There is a great big difference between 
the gift of gab and the gift of grace. It does 
not require much self-denial on the part of some 
people, to stand around and talk, and talk, and 
talk. What we need on this camp ground is to 
pray, pray, pray! Then we are going to see 
something done here that will satisfy the heart 
of Jesus Christ. Do not tell me about the hard- 
ness of men's hearts. I know it is harder today 



60 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

— it seems so to me — to get men and women to 
God ; but one thing I do know — the Gospel is the 
power of God unto salvation to everyone that 
believeth. I know that God hears and answers 
prayer, and I know this, that whether you are 
in the church or out of the church, just as sure 
as God lives, before every man and woman within 
the sound of my voice tonight, before every boy 
and girl who has arrived at the age of accounta- 
bility, there is an eternal heaven, with all its 
joys, with all its blessedness, with all the glory 
that the Son had with the Father before the 
world was, or there is an eternal, salty, fiery, bil- 
lowy hell, and it depends upon men's actions here. 
Jesus Christ told us about a church member who 
"lifted up his eyes in hell." Church membership 
is no guarantee of salvation. 

"The Lord shall reward the doer of evil ac- 
cording to his wickedness. " 

It was a hard thing to get away from the 
United States Government during the last war. 
They had secret service men in business offices; 
they had them in shops; they had them on the 
street; they had them wherever men congregat- 
ed, and men not knowing that notice had been 
taken of what they said, found the heavy hand 
of the government laid upon them **nd the; 



WORDS THAT BURN 61 

were summoned before the Department of Jus- 
tice. The government was watching, and very 
few men escaped with their treason against the 
government. But if men could not get away 
from the government, how are you going to get 
away from God? General Mitchell, that Chris- 
tian astronomer, sat in his observatory and 
turned his telescope down across the country, 
and seven miles away he saw boys in an orchard, 
shaking apples off the trees and robbing the or- 
chard. They knew nothing of it, but that man's 
eye was upon them. But, listen! There never 
was a sin you ever committed, whether in the 
light or dark, whether at home or a thousand 
miles from home, there was never a sin hid 
away in your bosom that you ever committed 
that you would not have your wife, your sister, 
your mother to know, but God was gazing on 
the whole thing, and unless you confess and re- 
pent, and get right with God, He will uncover 
that thing at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Oh, 
we go to campmeeting, and we go to our church- 
es, and we go Sabbath after Sabbath, and go in 
and out like the door on its hinges, and then 
we think no responsibility, no decision, no action 
called for. Listen ! If you have got a spark of 
oldtime Bible salvation, it will put a go in you, 



62 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

and make you interested in the salvation of souls. 
One of my prayers is, O God, help me to see in 
everybody someone for whom Jesus died! And 
yet they are dying all around us, they are slip- 
ping through the fingers of the church by thou- 
sands into a devil's hell, and there is very little 
effort being made to save them. We have peri- 
odic spasms that last about ten days, and then 
for the balance of the year we devote ourselves 
to monkey shows and church socials, and lec- 
tures, and entertainments, and let people go to 
hell, while Jesus Christ is on the throne praying. 
I repeat what Brother Hatfield said this after- 
nooon, Lord, wake us up! We are going to 
campmeeting and enjoying ourselves ten days in 
the year, and going back home and lying on 
our oars, and letting the world go to hell. God 
knows. God sees. I am glad to preach sermon^ 
that make people uncomfortable, that drive peo- 
ple to their knees. I am glad to preach sermons 
that drive men and women to confession. That 
old Book is gloriously true. It is awfully true. 
It is tremendously true. It is eternally true. 
"The wages of sin is death." Oh, you would 
not think so. You would think sin was a joke. 
You cannot get ten ungodly men together one 
hour in a fishing party or a hunting party, but 



WORDS THAT BURN 63 

before the hour is past someone will have some- 
thing to say that is smutty or unclean, and thinks 
it is smart; but God makes a record of it. You 
never uttered a sentence with a double meaning, 
you never thought an unclean thing, but God 
Almighty had the record. You never did a mean 
thing, but God Almighty took note of it, and He 
will call you to judgment. You do not have to 
drink. You do not have to smoke. You do not 
have to chew, and I think it is as much of a sin 
to chew as it is to drink. Any man that violates 
the law of God in his own body, sins against 
God. Oh, I got along beautifully in some meet- 
ings for six or eight days. Some fellows said, 
"That is fine preaching." "That is good preach- 
ing/' They would sit on the front seat, and 
shout and shout, and about the ninth day God 
would put something on me about tobacco, and 
then they closed up just like a clam. .Thej were 
members of the church, had their names on the 
church record. Whenever a man gets real Bible 
salvation, it will change the color of his spit, and 
the Lord will reward the doer of evil in his own 
body. If I live until the 23d day of next month, 
I will be seventy-four years old. I have not got 
an ache or a pain. I have not got an organ of 
my body that I know I have from any ill feeling. 



64 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

When I came to this country I was as sound in 
my body as any baby that was born since Abel. 
I was the first baby of an old-fashioned Metho- 
dist father and mother. Father was converted 
at sixteen, mother at fifteen. Neither one of 
them ever went into sin. Father lived to be 
eighty-one and never backslid. Mother will be 
ninety-six next November, was converted at fif- 
teen, and never backslid, and when I was coming 
to this country they did not try to kill me, so I 
landed safely, with a perfect body — perfect in 
limb, perfect in wind, and I never went off into 
sin, as many have done, for which I thank God 
and the training of my Christian parents. They 
watched over me, did not let me out after dark. 
I do not know that I ever stayed out much 
after dark, until after I went into the army, and 
I went into the army just before I was seventeen 
years of age. They kept me home, and I went 
to church with them, and sat on the same seat 
with them. I did not sit on the same seat with 
mother, because when I was a little fellow and 
went to church, trie men sat on one side, and the 
women on the other. Mien are rewarded for the 
evil they do to their bodies, as they violate the 
law of God, and if you have sinned against your 
own body, either in the marriage relation or your 



WORDS THAT BURN 65 

appetites, you will die and go to hell as quickly as 
the biggest drunkard in America. The Lord 
shall reward the doer of evil according to his 
wickedness. 

Nobody ever did a good deed but what God 
took note of it. I see an old prophet down here 
in a pit, and the pit has mire in it, it has water 
in it, and down there means death, and somebody 
pities the old prophet, and goes to the king and 
says, "You leave Jeremiah down there many 
days and the old prophet will die on your hands. 
Let me take him out." And the king said, "Go, 
take him out." And they let down clouts to go 
under his arms, and let down a rope, and told 
him to put the rope over the clouts, and then lift- 
ed him up out of the dungeon and landed him, 
and took him over and put him in a chamber and 
took care of him. By and by, in the evil day, 
God remembered that man that went to the king 
in behalf of the prophet, and said, "Tell him the 
people of the land will go into captivity, but he 
can go wherever he pleases, have perfect liberty, 
and the whole land is at his command." 

Oh, God is very mindful of His laws. God 
said to His people, "One year in every seven thou 
shalt leave the land lay at rest." But they were 
like the people of America are today — they were 



66 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

prosperity mad — and for 490 years the land had 
no rest. But listen! God has got a long mem- 
ory. By and by those people were carried off into 
captivity for seventy years, and the land had its 
rest. Oh, you are dealing with God. You can- 
not cheat Him. Today the Sabbath, with many 
people, is a day of pleasure, a day for big din- 
ners, a day for visiting, a day for company. I 
remember I went on a new charge one time. One 
of the leading members drove up in front of my 
house after Sunday morning service, stepped 
out in front of the house (he had a great big, 
spanking team of bays and a fine surrey), and 
he said to the children, "Is Brother Kulp there?" 
I went to the front door, and this man said, 
"Brother KJulp, let your George go out with us 
and spend the afternoon, and we will bring him 
back when we come to church tonight." I said, 
"No, sir; I do not allow my children to go visit- 
ing on Sunday." If people do not obey the laws 
of God, they will not obey the laws of man. The 
man that is not loyal to God is not a good citizen. 
We are introducing the European Sabbath. Talk 
about the Puritan Sabbath, when they would not 
make a fire or wash the dishes — bless God, I 
would rather have a Puritan Sabbath than a 
European Sabbath. They produced men. We 



WORDS THAT BURN 67 

do not have any statesmen today. We have a 
lot of politicians, and they have got their ear to 
the ground to hear the sentiment of the people. 
They are not leaders, but followers. In those 
days we had men that stood four-square. We 
are talking about keeping the Sabbath. There 
is not much shouting, is there? The Bible says 
it is a day of rest and worship, not v a day for fun 
and for frolic, and your ministers all over this 
country that are talking about a liberal Sab- 
bath, and moving picture shows on Sunday, and 
baseball games on Sunday, belong to the devil. 
"The Lord shall reward the evil doer (the Sab- 
bath breaker) according to his wickedness." 
That is the teaching of God's Word. You are 
dealing with God's Word. Listen to what Jesus 
said: "The words that I speak unto you, they 
shall judge you in that day." "The words that I 
speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." 
You are not dealing with me. I am bringing 
God's message. I would not dare to preach any- 
thing else but what God gives me, and I preach 
anything God gives me, no matter where I am, 
if I have to walk home. Listen to what a man 
doubting the truth of that Word said: "If I 
could believe that death is an eternal sleep, I'd 
be happy; but if there is a life beyond, I ani a 



68 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

lost soul, and eternity means hell for me/' And 
that is true — hell for the man that does wickedly, 
no matter how moral he is, no matter how high 
he stands in society. It is hell for the sinner, 
rich or poor. Oh, we can go down and stand 
before the congregations in the slums and preach 
the truth, and lay it on about hell, and about 
the violation of God's law, and then when we get 
uptown in the churches, and get a lot of so- 
called respectable sinners before us, then we are 
dealing in nosegays and perfumery and rose 
water, and they are going to the same hell as the 
others do. 

"The Lord shall reward him according to his 
wickedness." Down in the Shenandoah Valley 
the commander of a brigade of cavalrymen was 
riding through the valley. There is a home, and 
there stands a man in the front yard, and there 
is a boy not over sixteen years of age. Back 
there about five miles, two or three Union soldiers 
were hanging by the neck. The commander of 
this brigade said, "Mosby's guerillas did that. 
We will settle with those fellows." And he came 
on until he came to this house, and there stood 
that man and there stood that boy ; not a gun in 
their hands, no sign of armed resistance, and he 
commanded his men to shoot that man and boy. 



WORDS THAT BURN 69 

He said, "Run, if you can get a chance for your 
life/' And they ran, and he said, "Men, fire!" 
And the men fired, and that man and that boy 
went down to death in what I call cold-blooded 
murder. "The Lord shall reward the evil doer 
according to his wickedness/' That Brigadier 
General was the idol of his troops, of every cav- 
alryman in the Army of the Potomac, and they 
would have almost considered it treason to have 
said then what I am saying now. But listen! 
That man, after a great many years, went out 
West, was surrounded by the Indians. His 
troopers were shot down, and the Indians told 
how he stood there with his revolvers in hand, 
fighting to the very last, and at last he went 
down to death. Listen ! listen ! listen ! God shall 
reward the doer of evil according to his wicked- 
ness. You cannot violate the law of God and 
escape. There never was a Union or Confeder- 
ate general, during the Civil War, that began a 
battle on Sunday, but was defeated. When Ad- 
miral Cevera came out of that bay down there 
on Sunday morning, he thought the Union fleet 
was at worship. The flag of worship was up, 
and he came out and provoked the battle, and 
was defeated. He was fighting against God. 



70 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

My text is true to the individual and to the na- 
tion. 

Now, again. We know we must die. Unless 
Jesus conies, every saint here will die. Every 
sinner will die. Are we living as though we 
thought it? I was standing in the station at St. 
Mary's, Ohio, and there was a great big bill 
poster furnished by the railroad company, and 
on that poster here is a party in an automobile, 
and yonder is the railroad, and yonder comes a 
train, and here are the words on that poster: 
"Whenever you approach a railroad crossing, 
always remember you may enter eternity on a 
moment's notice." That is true whether you are 
approaching a railroad crossing or not. No one 
here has a guarantee for tomorrow. You may 
die before tomorrow morning. What prepara- 
tion are you making for it? I preached the 
other night. "Prepare to meet thy God." WTiat 
preparation are you making? "Why, Brother 
Kulp, I am a member of a church." You can die 
with your name on a church record, and go to 
hell. I believe in churches. My name is on a 
church record where I live, and where I was 
pastor for fifteen and one-half years. I believe 
in churches and denominations, and anybody that 
cannot be satisfied nowadays must be pretty hard 



WORDS THAT BURN 71 

to suit. But I am not depending upon my 
church membership to save me. The poet wrote, 
"All men think all men mortal but themselves. ,, 
That is a lie. Every man knows that he must 
die. The seeds of death are in our frame. Sev- 
enty heartbeats a minute, going to an eternal 
heaven or an eternal hell. When Sister Stand- 
ley was a young girl, she went down to a Mission 
in Cincinnati that Brother M. W. Knapp was in 
charge of, and when she was walking out, M. 
W. Knapp said to her, "You are standing on the 
brink of hell." Each and every sinner here to- 
night is standing on the verge of eternity, and 
on the very brink of an endless hell. The sinner 
is almost lost and already damned. You say, "I 
do not believe that." Every sinner is under con- 
demnation, and condemnation means damnation. 
God says in His Word, if your heart condemns 
you, God will condemn you. How do you stand 
in your own heart tonight? John uses the word 
heart there instead of conscience. How do you 
stand by your own conscience tonight? I knew 
a little girl who went visiting with her parents — 
a little bit of a thing about three years of age. 
For some reason her mother and the lady of the 
house went upstairs, and she took possession 
downstairs, as a child three years of age thought- 



72 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

lessly will, and she walked out into the kitchen, 
and then she walked out into the pantry. The 
pantry door was open, and she saw some cookies, 
and that child took two or three of them and 
came out chewing cookies. The lady of the 
house said, "That's all right/' Let me tell you 
something. Quite a number of years afterward, 
when she was a young lady, she went to the 
altar and wanted to get right with God, and she 
prayed and prayed, and came to her mother and 
said, "Mother, do you remember when we went 

to Mrs. W 's, when I was a little girl three 

years old, and I took some cookies out of the 
cupboard? Do you think I ought to go and tell 

Mrs. W ?" Oh, she got through all right. 

She is a preacher today. There is a way through. 
But listen! You cannot go over your sins and 
you cannot go under your sins. There is only 
one way, and that is God's way — repent, confess 
and forsake. Have you done it? You were on 
the car the other day, and the conductor did not 
collect your fare. Do you call yourself honest? 
You are a thief ! You rode in the train the other 
day. You had your girl with you, and she was 
over six years of age, and you ought to have 
paid halffare, and you did not do it, and you 
thought that you beat the railroad company, and 



WORDS THAT BURN 73 

you were that much ahead. You are a thief — 
and you will die and go to hell unless you repent. 
I was preaching out at Salvation Park this way 
one night about fifteen years ago, and went down 
off the platform and started over to my tent to 
get on dry underwear — I had been perspiring — 
and as I went by a woman said to me, "Great 
God, preacher, what am I to do? That is what 
I did coming to campeeting." She had her 
children with her, and did not pay halffare. You 
do not like this preaching. This is too pointed. 
You want something that is general. Generali- 
ties are the death of prayer and the death of 
preaching. God did not call me to deal in gen- 
eralities. He called me to preach the straight 
Gospel. 

I was preaching at a certain place; I was lay- 
ing on the truth, and a man said to another 
preacher who was sitting behind him, "I wonder 
if there is any necessity for any such preaching as 
Brother Kulp gave us tonight ?" It was none 
of his business. I am not a man-made preacher. 
A man did not call me to preach. If a man had 
called me to preach I would have run away long 
ago. I had a call from heaven, and knew God 
called me to preach. Before the next morning 
went by this preacher who was sitting behind 



74 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

that man that criticized me, went to him and 
confessed to sin, and the next morning when I 
preached, he came to the altar. You need 
straight preaching. You are settling down in 
the mire and mud of sin, and you will settle in 
an eternal hell, unless you repent. 

I should not wonder tonight but there is some 
fellow here that holds his head mighty high, and 
it has not been many years since you sat in a 
parlor and the young girl you sat with tonight 
is on the street, wrecked and ruined, and you 
are running around in somebody else's parlor, 
to play the same thing over. A young girl one 
time walked out of church, and a boy walked up 
and said, "May I have the pleasure of seeing 
you home? Will you take my arm?" She said, 
"No, sir." The next day his sister came and 
said to this young lady: "Last night my brother 
approached you in a very gentlemanly manner, 
and offered you his arm and asked for the priv- 
ilege of seeing you home, and you said, 'No, sir.' 
Will you please tell me why you refused my 
brother's arm?" She said, "Certainly I will tell 
you. I will not take the arm of any licentious 
young man." 

I heard tell of a woman sometime ago, the 
night before she was married the man that mar- 



WORDS THAT BURN 75 

ried her looked her in the face and said, "Have 
you always been a good, true, clean woman?" 
Listen! If the women that are about to be mar- 
ried, would ask the men that question, and insist 
upon it, seven-tenths of the men could not an- 
swer it truthfully, or would not, rather. I am 
going by what the doctors say. I have the rec- 
ords. A clean woman has as good a right to 
a clean man as a clean man has to a clean 
woman. A man came to me one time and said, 
"Oh, I want to see you alone." I said, "Come on 
up in my study." We went up there, and he said, 
"Oh, what am I going to do? Before I was 
married, my body was diseased through sin, and 
I came back to this city and married my present 
wife, and now we have children, and I am afraid 
that my sin will tell in their bodies, and I go 
down to the drug store and buy medicine and 
take it home to wife, and say, 'Wife, it is spring- 
time; the children ought to have blood medicine/ 
She says, 'There is nothing the matter with the 
children/ " And he did not dare to tell her, but 
he was afraid that the sin of the father would 
be visited upon the children. Listen ! A girl had 
better, a thousand times over, die an old maid 
than to yoke up with diseased manhood. I do 
not think old maids are such awful things, after 



76 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

all. I am pretty sure of one thing — they did not 
jump at the first chance they had, like some other 
folks. I want to say another thing. I believe 
that God Almighty can take a man who has been 
down in sin and down in the slums, and down in 
the mire, and forgive his sins, and clean his 
heart, and in a measure restore his body. Glory 
to God ! "Though ye have lain among the pots, 
yet shall your wings be as the wings of a dove. ,, 
Hallelujah! God says so in His Word. I am 
glad I believe Gad. 

I want to get that second text — "Treasuring 
up wrath against the day of wrath. " Treasur- 
ing up stores for eternity. Here is a man with 
a muck rake. He is after gold. He fails to see 
the crowd. Here is a man pleasure mad. He is 
in the theater, the moving picture show. Here 
is a man at the gaming table. Here is a man 
with liquor hid away in the cellar and closet. 
Here is a man — what is he doing? Gratifying 
appetite ? No ; I will tell you what he is doing — 
treasuring up wrath. There never was a lie told, 
there never was an unclean thought, there never 
was a licentious act, there never was a word 
spoken that could not be said in the presence of 
God, but what that person added to the treasures 
of wrath up yonder. Oh, it is no joke to live. It 



WORDS THAT BURN 77 

is no dream to live. We are living for two 
worlds. Dr. Warren said there are two classes 
of people — timists and eternalists; worldly and 
other-worldly, and the great majority of people 
are today timists, the worldlings. I saw a girl 
at the altar in one of my last meetings, and she 
had on a wrist watch, and the thing did not go, 
and had not gone for months. Worldlings ! Oh, 
you say you don't believe in those things. Well, 
I do. That was a clear case of pride. The thing 
did not go at all, and it was worn for show, and if 
fashion today said to wear them on your ankles 
instead of the wrist, the majority of young folks 
would have them on their ankles. 

The Lord shall reward the doer of evil ac- 
cording to his works — like for like. The law of 
retribution runs all through the Word of God, 
and runs all through natural law. Jacob de- 
ceived his father, and his sons deceived him. The 
Egyptians killed the male children, and God Al- 
mighty killed the eldest son of the Egyptians. 
Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. 
Haman built a gallows for Mordecai, but was 
hanged on it himself. Daniel was thrown in 
the lions' den by his enemies, but God kept him, 
and the next day his enemies were thrown in 
themselves. They put the Hebrew children in 



78 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

the fiery furnace, and those that cast them in 
were burned by the fire. Whenever you try to 
make it hot for somebody else, you always get 
burned yourself. Charles IX. looked down on 
the pavements where Huguenot blood was run- 
ning red — the streets flowing with the blood. 
How did he die? His pores issuing blood; 
bloody forms before his eyes; bloody pavements 
before his eyes. "Whatsoever a man sows, that 
shall he also reap." He shall be rewarded ac- 
cording to his wickedness. You cannot get away 
from your sins, only at the Cross. You remem- 
ber Pilgrim came through the little wicket gate, 
and came and stood in front of the Cross, and 
there he lost his burden. You remember what 
Bunyan makes him say: "Blest Cross! blest 
sepulcher ! Yea, rather, blessed be the man that 
hung thereon and died for me!" You can lost, 
your sins at the Cross, but you will have to take 
God's way to get there. 

Here is a man who murdered his master. He 
left his master's body in the house and set fire 
to the house. He was arrested, tried and con- 
victed. Here is a judge sitting on the bench. 
He is very, very uneasy. The lawyers notice it, 
the prosecuting attorney notices it, the counsel 
for the defense notices it, and now comes the 



WORDS THAT BURN 79 

time to sentence the prisoner. The judge breaks 
down and begins to weep. He went down, took 
his place in the prisoner's box, and sat alongside 
of the prisoner. Listen to what he said : "Twen- 
ty years ago I murdered my master. I left his 
body in a house, and I set fire to the house, and 
I have been trying my own case and find myself 
guilty." Twenty years ago a murderer — a judge 
now on the bench, but still a murderer. Con- 
science is faithful. The case reminds him of his 
sin, and he sits down in the prisoner's box and 
acknowledges himself guilty. "Be sure your 
sin will find you out." "The wages of sin is 
death." 

"Treasuring up wrath against the day of 
wrath." You are dealing with God, and the 
messengers of God are on your track, and yon- 
der is the judgment seat, and yonder Calvary, 
and there is the praying, bleeding Christ, and 
here is the blessed Holy Ghost, and men are sit- 
ting under conviction, and people are saying: 
"I would like to be saved, but, oh, that past life !" 
Listen! The Blood will cover the past, but you 
must repent; you must confess, you must for- 
sake. You must go with God, or what? This 
Book says then, eternal wrath. How is the wrath 
of God pictured in the Bible? Fire! Fire! Fire! 



8o THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Burn so much surface of the body, and all the 
doctors in the land cannot restore you ; but Jesus 
Christ says that eternal wrath is eternal fire. 
"The smoke of their torment ascendeth forever 
and ever." It is going into eternity, over the 
dividing line, by the Bible, by a mother's prayers, 
by the prayers of the saints, by the entreaties of 
the Son of God by the pleadings of the Holy 
Ghost, going over the crucified body of the Son 
of God, to a billowy, fiery, eternal, salty, dark 
hell, the abode of the damned, where they chew 
their lips, bite their tongues; where there is no 
water, no children, no music. Lost forever and 
forever and forever lost! Without hope all 
through eternity. No mourners' benches, no ser- 
mons, no altar calls, no invitations, no mercy 
offered, no repentance offered, but lost — lost for- 
ever. Not for one thousand years, not for ten 
thousand years, but lost for all the ages of the 
future — lost! lost! lost! As Brother Ed Fergu- 
son said on this platform one time — lost until the 
last soul winging its way through eternal space 
can find somewhere the gravestone of the Al- 
mighty God. That means lost, lost, lost, forever ! 
Brother, tonight God calls you, the Spirit is 
striving with you, Jesus is praying, and here is 
a blood-bought opportunity. Listen! You will 



WORDS THAT BURN 81 

make a decision tonight. I can imagine some- 
body says, "No, preacher ; I will not." Yes, you 
will. You will decide for God or against Him. 
If you are saved you will know it as well as you 
know your own name, and if you do not know 
you are saved, you are not. "The Spirit beareth 
witness with our spirit that we are the children 
of God." What are you going to do with Jesus 
tonight? Will you receive Him? Tomorrow is 
eternity. 

I was preaching away up in Ontario, near 
North Bay, where they have the snows until 
May and June. The first night I preached, a 
young man said no to God. He went out of the 
house, the night was dark, and that man climbed 
over a fence and got down on his knees and said, 
"O God, if you will spare me until tomorrow 
night, I will go to that altar." And God spared 
him, and he did not go to the altar. That man 
went through one meeting after another. I never 
knew him to be settled and settled with God, and 
since I have been down here, Brother Tom Rob- 
inson has told me that that man is in eternity. 
God called him again and again. 

I was preaching down in George Street Mis- 
sion, and I made a remark down there like this : 
"If you ever had a better experience than you 



82 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

have tonight, you are backslidden. " God said to 
a man, "Young man, go to the altar." He did 
not do it. Five years after that I went up in 
Canada to preach. I was preaching the first 
night, and I again made that remark, and I gave 
the altar call, and a joung man stopped me and 
said, "Five years ago I was in George Street 
Mission, in Cincinnati, O., and I heard Mr. Kulp 
say the same thing he said tonight, 'If ever you 
had a better experience that you have tonight, 
you are backslidden/ and God said to me, 'Go to 
the altar/ and I did not go, and five years from 
that time he comes up here and preaches the 
same truth, and I am going to the altar." God 
has a message here for somebody tonight, and it 
may be that young man that is nearest the dead 
line; that young woman that is nearest eternity; 
that young girl that mother is praying for; that 
mother's son that God has been talking to in 
these meetings, and tonight God has given you 
another opportunity. Will you come forward 
here to the altar? How many persons are there 
here, you want the prayers of God's people, you 
are not ready to meet God, and Jesus says, "Be 
ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, 
the Son of man cometh." "Prepare to meet thy 
God." 



WORDS THAT BURN 83 



V 

THUS SAITH THE LORD 

"I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say 
unto them, Thus saith the Lord God" (Ezek. 
2:4). 

Every man who is called to preach the Gospel 
is sent of God. No man has a right in the minis- 
try who is not called into the ministry. Medi- 
cine is a profession, the law is a profession, the 
ministry is a calling. "No man taketh this honor 
unto himself." I knew I was called to preach be- 
fore I was saved ; I have met other brethren who 
knew the same. I believe that God calls men 
and gives them the message and then accompa- 
nies the message with the Holy Ghost. In my 
early days when I was preaching, if I did not 
see some manifestations in the congregation I 
would get bothered. One time I stopped right 
in the middle of a sermon and said to the saints, 
"I wish you would pray!" When I got through 
preaching an old-fashioned Methodist preacher 
who sat on the sofa behind me came to me and 



84 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

said, "George" — I was a young man then — "I 
want to tell you one thing: God is always work- 
ing, whether you see it or not!' And I have 
never forgotten that. God is always working; 
the Holy Ghost is absolutely faithful — we can de- 
pend upon Him. All I want to know is that I 
am God's man, have His message for the hour, 
and all the big preachers you can put on the plat- 
form behind me do not have any effect on me. 

"Thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the 
Lord." Do not you see in this text, called of 
God, sent with a message? Sure. It is right on 
the surface. "Thou shalt say unto them, Thus 
saith the Lord." There are some things that I 
do want to know; I am a natural interrogation 
point; I am continually asking questions. Some 
things I can only learn of God. 

Old Squire Jones was sick — had a stroke of 
paralysis. The doctor was attending him; he 
was getting better, but he was very thoughtful. 
The doctor came to see him and he sat there with 
his head bowed apparently in deep thought. He 
said, "Doctor, may I have another attack of 
this?" "Yes, sir." "And it may prove fatal?" 
"Yes, sir; but cheer up, Squire, you are a man 
of splendid constitution. You may not have an- 
other attack for years." "But I may have an- 



WORDS THAT BURN 85 

other soon?" "Yes." "And I might go off in 
that attack?" "Yes; but cheer up, Squire, we 
all have to pass through the gate sometime." 
The Squire said, "Doctor, you are a Christian 
man; I am not. I want to ask you a question: 
What is there beyond the gate?" What is there 
beyond the gate? I want to know. What is 
there beyond? Is there a living hereafter? Is 
there something beyond ? 

Man is the masterpiece of God. He was made 
a little lower than the angels; he was crowned 
with glory and honor, and when God looked on 
him — let me say it, will you — God was proud of 
His work; and He said, "It is good." Man was 
made to have dominion. Doctor Watson says 
that every man has the primeval itch, the desire 
to boss ; and although he fell, that thing stuck to 
him. If there is anything I despise, it is an ec- 
clesiastical boss. God made me too big to have 
a Pope over me. I like brethren, but I have no 
use for popes. I do believe that the grace of God 
will cleanse a man from the primeval itch. Man 
had dominion over everything — the fishes of the 
sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field; 
he walked and he talked with God; held com- 
munion with the Infinite. But he fell — lost the 
Divine image. There are some things man did 



86 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

not lose, and one is his immortality. If God had 
not provided a Savior for the race, man would 
have lived on forever, eternally lost. Man did 
not lose his immortality. The Seventh Day Ad- 
ventists say he did, but we say he did not. And 
listen! He has in him capabilities, and he has 
proven his mastery. There is not anything so 
masterful as a man in the will of God. There 
are masterful men who are outside the will of 
God, but I crave them for Jesus. He has mas- 
tered the secrets of the earth, has discovered the 
gold, searched lands and waters for diamonds 
and pearls, and has annihilated time and dis- 
tance. When a man used to want to go across 
continent, he had to take a wagon and go. with 
a wagon train, where there were a number of 
men went together for safety; and it took weeks 
and months to go across the prairies and reach 
the other side. Or he had to go down around 
Cape Horn and come up on the Pacific. Now, 
he buys his ticket, sits back in his Pullman car, 
and in four days lands on the Pacific Coast. He 
has annihilated distance and he has annihilated 
time. You can start a night letter at 12 o'clock 
and it will reach the Atlantic at 8 o'clock, four 
hours before it started. If that is not annihi- 
lating time, I do not know what it is. Man has 



WORDS THAT BURN 87 

conquered the air. The Frenchmen and Ger- 
mans are doing much of their fighting in the air 
and under the water. I believe the time is com- 
ing when air ships will be as common as trains. 
Now, I want you to look at man : He is mas- 
ter of the earth, master of the sea, master of the 
air, made in the image of God. Look at him 
as his strength begins failing. He does not 
walk with a firm step any longer, goes feeling 
his way, going slowly down to the grave. I want 
to ask you a question, Is this man who is made a 
little lower than the angels — is this man made 
to fill a hole in the ground, furnish a banquet for 
worms? Is that the end of man? I do not be- 
lieve it. Somehow I feel inside of me a longing 
for something beyond. But, how am I going to 
know? Listen! Thus saith the Lord, "These 
things are written that you might have life." 
Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to 
light through the Gospel. I can find here in the 
Word of God all that I need to know, and I can 
walk along with a firm step, see death coming 
down the road and know that I am conqueror. 
How do I know it? Know it by faith; know it 
because the Bible says so. I am believing every- 
thing in the Bible; everything from Genesis to 
Revelation. There are a lot of little preachers 



88 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

going about writing things and calling them 
"New Thought"; but, God bless you! I am stay- 
ing by the old Book. How do we know things? 
"Thus saith the Lord." There is a heaven here- 
after. How do I know ? After Solomon, the wise 
man, had finished the greatest temple that was 
ever built, when dedicating it, he spread forth 
his hands to heaven and said, "Lord God of Is- 
rael . . . hearken thou to the supplication 
of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, and hear 
thou in heaven, thy dwelling place." Say, heav- 
en is the dwelling place of God. I believe there 
is a heaven. Jesus Christ said, "In my Father's 
house are many mansions. I go to prepare a 
place for you." I believe in a heaven of many 
mansions. I believe all this Book says in regard 
to it. God says, "Heaven is my throne." God 
tells us in this Book all that we need to know 
about heaven. 

I sat one time by a little cot, and in it lay a 
little child about two years old, who was dying 
of membranous croup. As I watched that little 
one suffer and the mother standing over it wring- 
ing her hands, I was glad to know that there is 
a heaven where sickness never comes. No sick- 
ness there; the saints are all healthy; no pov- 
erty there — the saints are all wealthy. God 



WORDS THAT BURN 89 

bless you, beloved! I never allow any person to 
call me a poor preacher. I am not. Not at all! 
If ever there was a fellow who walked this earth 
independent, it is this man. I never allow any- 
body to measure me by the wealth of this world 
that I possess. Bless God ! I am an heir of heaven, 
a co-heir with Jesus Christ! Sometimes I find 
a woman who has good sense — a young woman. 
One time there was a young woman who lived 
in a certain community, and there was a man 
who came into the community and lived there 
for about a year. It seemed that he was all 
right, but the people did not know anything about 
his ancestors. He kept company with this young 
lady, and finally they were engaged to be married, 
and someone came around and said, "Say, you 
do not know where he came from," She said, 
"N'O, but I know where he is going/' Amen ! 

Say, we are priests, we are kings unto God, 
going to heaven where there is no sickness or 
death, reunion of loved ones and no one ever gets 
old. Thank God! 

Now, something about the inhabitants. There 
are some folks I like to see. Would not give a 
snap of my finger to shake hands with Roosevelt 
or anybody because of their political standing; 
but there are some folks I would like to see. I 



90 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

would like to see the man that lay at the rich 
man's gate, and I expect to sometime. I want 
to see the man who went into the lions' den and 
there spent the night without any harm being 
done him; I want to see the man who took his 
son and was about ready to offer him as a sacri- 
fice when God came on the scene. Oh, I want 
to talk to them about their experiences, and I 
will have plenty of time to do it, too. The sun 
never sets there. I want to talk with John the 
Baptist. I am in sympathy with every man that 
had his head cut off. There would be a lot of 
preachers have their heads taken off these days 
if they would stand up and say, "You are living 
with some other man's wife" — and we need some 
people to say it. I do not believe John's head 
was in the basket, until his soul was in heaven. 
Oh, I am proud of our folks ; John and Abraham 
and Brother Moses, and all the rest of them. 
We have some fine relations you do not know of. 
I remember in my early days I used to be so 
proud; I got my grandfather's record and put it 
in the Bible, and was so proud of it. Say, I have 
gotten over that. The man who cannot boast of 
anything but his ancestors is like a hill of po- 
tatoes — the best of him is under the ground. 
But we like to talk about our folks — Hannah, 



WORDS THAT BURN 91 

and John and Moses and Daniel and Paul and 
Timothy, and all the rest of them. Hallelujah! 
Yes, I am proud of my folks! Blood relations 
of mine. Before the Cross nobody ever went to 
heaven only in anticipation of the blood; since 
the Cross they have had the password, "The 
Blood." Yes, I want to see our folks, and I am 
headed that way. I used to have a horse, and 
when I would drive him away from home I could 
not make that horse trot unless I would whip 
him, and he would want to stop at every place 
I ever stopped; but when I would start home 
that horse would just trot along — and how he 
would go! Do you know why he would go so 
fast? He was going home. Well, God bless 
you, the older I get the faster I am going toward 
home, and I am making more fuss over it than 
I ever did in all my life. A friend of mine a 
few years ago said, "When Kulp gets older he 
won't be so radical." But, bless God, I am get- 
ting worse! I have more to shout over. Glory 
to God! I did not know there was so much 
ahead. But listen! You will never get heaven 
up yonder unless you get heaven here. Heaven 
is a state and heaven is a place, and you have to 
have heaven, the state, in you before you go to 
heaven, the place. Have you got it? Is there 



92 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

anything inside of you that would not suit in 
heaven? Anything inside of you that would be 
out of harmony in heaven ? God help us tonight ! 
This is the place to get things fixed up. Amen ! 
Oh, I believe the Book: "Thou shalt say, thus 
saith the Lord." What is there beyond? Only 
two places — heaven and hell. You say, "Brother 
Kulp, I believe in heaven, but I do not believe 
in hell." What is your authority for heaven? 
"Oh," you say, "the Bible." Well, that is my 
authority for hell. Now, if the Bible is not true 
in regard to hell, then it may not be true in re- 
gard to heaven. If ever you lie to me you have 
robbed me of my confidence, and I will not be- 
lieve you for five years, unless you get converted, 
and if that old Book is not true all the way 
thYough, I have no use for it. I believe it is 
true in every statement it makes; I believe it is 
true in every statement it makes in regard to 
heaven, and I believe it is true in every statement 
it makes in regard to hell, and I can warn the 
people. There is a hell, and you and I are head- 
ed toward an eternal heaven or an eternal hell — 
only one step, only the thickness of our ribs be- 
tween eternal heaven and eternal hell. How do 
you know it? The Word of God says so. Oh, 
there are only two classes nowadays. I read a 



WORDS THAT BURN 93 

statement the other day that every congregation 
is made up of the righteous and the wicked. "The 
wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the na- 
tions that forget God." "The fearful, the un- 
believing, the whoremonger, the sorcerer, every- 
thing that believeth and maketh a lie" has an 
eternal hell awaiting them. Why? Did not 
Jesus love them? Yes. Did not the Holy Spirit 
strive with them? Yes. What is the matter? 
They deliberately rejected Jesus Christ; they de- 
liberately said "No" to God. Listen! You and 
I have all the salvation we want; if you want 
any more you can have it. If you are lost, it 
will be because you would not be saved. Listen 
to this : "How often would I, but ye would not." 
"Ye would not come unto me that ye, might have 
life." "If any man is witling to come unto me, 
he shall know the doctrine." Remember, you 
are wicked because you want to be wicked; you 
are a sinner because you want to be a sinner. 
One time a little boy coming home from school 
heard a man upstairs praying at the top of his 
voice; and when the little boy reached home he 
said to his mother, "Mother, what does that man 
pray that way for ?" The mother said, "He wants 
to be good." "Well," the little boy said, "Why 
don't kef 33 Yes, why don't he? You are as good 



94 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

as you want to be. Oh, I am not saying that 
men will not grow. "The path of the just shineth 
brighter and brighter unto the perfect day." 
"Evil men wax worse and worse/' Oh, I get 
sick and tired of hearing people say tp God, 
"Have your way." Say, brother, you let God 
have His way with you and He will make you 
what you ought to be. Do not you get down on 
your knees and talk about heredity and all that. 
I know there is a power in heredity, but I know 
there is a power in the blood of Jesus Christ. 

I would quit preaching and go out of the busi- 
ness if I did not know that ajl heaven was back 
of me. I am sure that when I am preaching 
there is somebody right here by the side of me. 
You do not see Him and I d/o not; but He said, 
"Lo, I am with you alway." I at one time an- 
nounced a week ahead of time that I was going 
to preach on roller skating, as I have no use for 
it. If I wanted to send a girl to hell I would 
send her to the roller skating rink, and I would 
send her as quick as I would to the dance hall. 
You will find old widows there skating with 
boys, and old men with young girls. Lust is at 
the bottom of the whole affair. I made up my 
mind I was going to preach against that thing, 
and I announced it, although I knew three- 



WORDS THAT BURN 95 

fourths of my congregation would be against 
me. When I got up to preach my knees began 
to shake. I had selected the hymn: 

"Let worldly minds the world pursue 

It has no charms for me 
Once I enjoyed their pleasures too, 

But grace has set me free." 

Before I got through with that verse God 
struck me, and I would have stood up there and 
preached if there had been as many devils there 
as people. That sermon killed the roller skating 
rink in that place. The son of the proprietor 
of the skating rink said, "When that man Kulp 
comes down town I will show him what I will 
do for him. ,, But he did not do anything. God 
managed the whole business. 

There is a hell for those who refuse to walk 
in the light, and say — if you are not living up 
to the light that God gives you, you will die and 
go to hell just as sure as you are living. You 
do not have to go out in open sin to be lost. All 
you have to do is just refuse to walk in the 
light. "If we walk in the light . . . the blood 
cleanseth" ; but if we refuse to walk in the light, 
that light becomes darkness. It means an eter- 
nal hell. Some people do not like for men to 
preach on hell; but if you cannot get a prayer 



96 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

through to heaven, if you die tonight, you will 
drop into hell just as sure as God is on the throne 
and that old Bible is true. John Bunyan in clos- 
ing Pilgrim's Progress said, he saw there was 
a way to hell from the very gate of heaven. 
There is a way to hell from the church door, and 
from the church record. You may have your 
name on the church book, and partake of the sac- 
raments and be baptized, but these things will 
never save you. You have to repent and forsake 
and believe, and then you will have the witness 
of the Spirit that you are a child of God. 

I was preaching a little over a year ago in a 
Union Church that belongs to a coal company 
up at Marytown, W. Va. God wonderfully 
blest that meeting, but I know this, that every 
dispensation that God has given will close in 
judgment, and every revival service that is re- 
jected, those who reject it will be visited in judg- 
ment. I made the remark at this meeting, that 
if people reject God they will die and go to hell 
and God will visit this place in judgment. I 
went there again this summer, and I was in a 
home taking dinner with a family, and I saw 
the picture of a young man and young lady on 
the wall, and I said, "Who is that?" And the 
mother said, "That is my daughter and her 



WORDS THAT BURN 97 

sweetheart. He was killed the last Thursday in 
the year." That young man was in that meet- 
ing; the Spirit strove with him, but he said "No" 
to God. He was in a coal mine and something 
broke and he was thrown up against the coal 
overhead, and the top of his head was taken 
right off, and the blood of the brain spattered the 
coal overhead. That was Thursday ; the coming 
Sunday he was to have been married. That young 
man said no to God's mercy and God followed 
that mercy with judgment. Oh, there is a hell, 
and you do not know when you are going there. 
You do not know who is going there ? Oh, yes ; 
all the "fearful, and unbelieving, and the abom- 
inable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and 
sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have 
their place in the lake which burneth with fire 
and brimstone." Yes, and everybody who says 
"No" to the Holy Ghost. Everybody who re- 
fuses to walk in the light. Tonight if God should 
take us we would be just what we are here. If 
we are unsaved now, unsaved then. Asking God 
to save you on your deathbed is no more effective 
than getting down on your knees at night and 
asking God to forgive you for the sins of the 
day. God help us ! 

We do not only know there is a hell and know 



98 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

what people are going there, but we know what 
they are doing in hell. My grandson, Brucy, 
was taken to a hospital, where he could have the 
best of attention during his illness. There was an 
operation going on, and he said, "Shut that 
door! Shut that door!" "What is it?" "Oh, I 
cannot stand it!" "What?" "The groaning, 
the groaning." Could not stand the groaning in 
the next room. By Sunday every room is rilled, 
and beyond the partition was a woman dying and, 
oh, the agony! Brucy said, "What is that?" 
"That is a woman dying out there. We have no 
room for her." But the next morning that sound 
was not heard any more, and he said, "Where 
is the woman?" and they said, "She is dead." 
Say, we know what they are doing in hell; they 
are groaning and crying and biting their lips, 
and it is eternal despair; it is eternal darkness. 
They are cursing each other there, cursing 
preachers who did not preach straight, cursing 
the Holy Ghost, cursing themselves, condemning 
their own selves, condemning each other. You 
know what they are doing in hell, and they are do- 
ing it all the time, and they are getting worse and 
worse the longer they are there, and when they 
have been there ten thousand years they cry out, 
"How long? How long?" And the answer will 



WORDS THAT BURN 99 

come back, "Forever, forever, forever !" Men 
live thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, severity, eighty, 
ninety years, and fall away and die, and then 
have all eternity to call themselves fools. 

Do you know tonight that God saves you ? Do 
you hear from heaven? Do you have the wit- 
ness of the Spirit that you are a child of God? 
Oh, I get a great deal of encouragement from 
the devil ! When I used to £0 to church, people 
would get up and say, "Well, I have had such a 
battle since last Sunday!" And I would say, 
"Glory to God!" Amen! I know that just so 
long as I have a battle on hand, there is a victory 
ahead. Oh, sometimes I go into a meeting and 
get down to pray, and it seems that every devil 
is around wanting to get the victory of that 
meeting, and I begin to shout to myself and say, 
"There is a victory coming and the devil knows 
it." Are you having a hard time, as you call it? 
Oh, do not call it that. The yoke is 
easy and the burden is light, and if you 
are a good soldier you will enjoy the 
fight. Mary Story went to Brother Knapp and 
said, "Why is it I have such battles?" He said, 
"Mary Story, have not I heard you pray for God 
to make you a warrior?" She said, "Yes." 
"Well, amen! then you must have battles." 



ioo THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and 
just to forgive us our sins." I was once in a 
meeting and there was a woman praying and I 
thought she was going through, and down went 
her head, and I said, "She struck something," 
and up went her head, and I said, "She is going 
through," and then it went down again, and I 
said, "Well, she has struck something." 
At the close of the meeting she came 
up to me and said, "Brother Kulp, I want 
to ask you a question." And she said, "If a 
woman has sinned against her husband, does she 
have to confess it?" I said, "I leave that with 
you and God. " She came up the next night 
and said, "Brother Kulp, I confessed to my hus- 
hand." And after she did this she was not long 
getting saved. If we do the best we know how, 
we have fellowship one with another and the 
blood of Jesus Christ, His son, cleanseth us from 
all sin. I was preaching up at Asheville, Ky., a 
short time ago, and a woman said, "Can I see 
you in the morning?" I said, "Yes." "What 
time?" I said, "Nine o'clock." But she came at 
8:30. When I went in she said, "Brother Kulp, 
you knocked out all my victory last night." I 
asked her what was the matter and she told me. 
I gave her some advice and I wish you could 



WORDS THAT BURN 101 

have seen her when she came to that altar that 
night. She got through, and she walked around 
there and waved her handkerchief and bobbed 
her head beautifully. Say — she was glad her 
victory was knocked out. 

The last time I saw Ed Ferguson he stood up 
and said, "I am ready for heaven in a moment's 
notice." In that congregation were scoffers, and 
they said, "Did you hear what Ed Ferguson 
said? Said he was ready for heaven in a mo- 
ment's notice." That man had the experience 
and he went to heaven in a few months after 
that — without much notice. God Almighty says 
to you tonight, "Be ye also ready for in such an 
hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. ,, 



to2 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 



VI 

PRACTICAL REGENERATION 

"He that committeth sin is of the devil. Who- 
soever is bom of God doth not commit sin ,} (i 
John 3:8, 9). 

This text is the definition of a real, sky-blue 
Gospel conversion. It does not say if you are 
sanctified you will not commit sin, but if you are 
really and truly converted you have gone out of 
the sinning business. There are two terms used 
in the Gospels by our Lord Himself, and they 
are synonymous; that is, you can use either of 
them in the place of the other in a sentence and 
you will not destroy the sense. In Matthew, the 
1 8th chapter, you will find that Jesus says, "Ex- 
cept ye be converted and become as little children, 
ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven/' 
And in the third chapter of John, he says, "Ex- 
cept a man be born again he cannot see the king- 
dom of God." We are told if any man be in 
Christ, he is a new creature. A person must be 
born again, converted, become a new creature in 



WORDS THAT BURN 103 

Christ Jesus, before he can be a candidate for 
Pentecost. In other words, there must be a birth 
before there can be a baptism — one must become 
a child before he can be an heir. We cannot live 
in the Spirit unless we are born of the Spirit. 
They that are after the Spirit, mind the things 
of the Spirit. These truths, it seems to me, are 
axiomatic — so self-evident they require no ar- 
gument. One of these texts gives us the 
signs, the unmistakable fruits of the fact we are 
born again. Read it — read them both. Doth not 
commit sin. He that committeth sin is of the 
devil. The Book teaches everywhere that who- 
soever committeth sin is the servant of sin. To 
whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his 
servants ye are. It is not what people say, nor 
whether we belong to the church; it is, What 
does God's Word say? Not what the preacher 
thinks of us, but what does the Spirit testify to. 
When we are really converted the old disposi- 
tion is gone, the old habits are gone, the old lan- 
guage is gone; we are new creatures, gone out 
of the sinning business, not only when you are 
converted, but you had to get out before God 
would save you. No one can pray in faith who 
holds on to some sin. Do not tell me that you 
sin every day. God says he that is converted 



icH THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

doth not commit sin. And he that committeth 
sin is of the devil. As many as are led by the 
Spirit of God they are the sons of God. If any 
man has not the Spirit of Christ he is none of 
His. No one can get located so easily if in any 
doubt about their relation to Him. Just sit down 
all alone with your Bible, and then hear what 
God has to say to you through the Word. Any 
impression that does not agree with the Word 
of God is of the devil. Any emotion that does 
not have the approval of the Word is not of 
God. You cannot go by your emotions. The 
Spirit and the Word agree. You never knew of 
a sinning Christian. I never saw one yet. The 
very moment a man sins he becomes a sinner, 
and needs to repent and fly at once to the blood. 
Repenting is the work of a man who has sinned. 
Did you ever know an honest thief? Did you 
ever see a sober drunkard? Did you ever know 
a truthful liar? You can find all three as soon 
as you can find a sinning Christian. He that is 
born of God doth not commit sin. Whosoever 
committeth sin is of the devil. You do not like 
this kind of preaching? Of course you do not, 
but that does not alter the truth, and I did not 
make this truth. It was God's own truth before 



WORDS THAT BURN 105 

you and I were born, and what is true once is 
always true. 

Conversion is a wonderful change. Read the 
Word and see what the Holy Ghost has to sav 
about it. It is a passing from death to life; it is 
a new creature; it is passing from darkness to 
light ; it is being taken out of the pit and having 
one's feet on the Rock; it is having the heart of 
flesh instead of a heart of stone ; it is being risen 
with Christ. It is such a wonderful change that 
everybody knows when and where it took place. 
I used to preach in my earlier ministry, "If you 
do not know the very time and the very spot 
when and where you were converted, then you 
never were converted. One day a lady and my 
wife and I were riding along the road when she 
said, "Brother Kulp, you do annoy me by your 
preaching." And I asked her, "How do I annoy 
you ?" She said, "You preach that if you do not 
know when and where you were converted, you 
never were converted, and I do not know a time 
that I did not love Jesus." I had no reason to 
doubt her word. She lived a consistent Chris- 
tian life and died in the faith; but I still insist 
upon it, that nine hundred and ninety-nine thou- 
sand, nine hundred and ninety-nine out every 
million know when and where they were con- 



io6 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

verted. I can take the devil to the very spot and 
know the very minute when God came to my 
soul; and all my sins were forgiven and I had 
the witness of the Spirit that I was converted, 
born again, became a new creature in Christ Je- 
sus. I have never doubted it. 

"He doth not commit sin." Well, let us ask, 
What is Sin? And you answer, "Any trans- 
gression of the law of God." Yes, that is Bible 
and we all agree to that, and any transgression 
of the law of God requires the blood. Sins of 
ignorance require the blood. But are we willing 
now to take all the Scripture definitions of sin? 
Let us examine, for we want to be right. Here 
is one, "Whatsoever is not of faith IS SIN." 
Is that right? Of course it is right. It has the 
stamp and seal of the Holy Ghost. Then, it is 
wrong for me to do a thing of which I have 
any doubt. In other words, doubtful things are 
wrong — are sinful. "Whosoever doubteth is 
condemned if he eat" will apply all the way along. 
I knew an old man who came to the altar, who 
had for years been making a profession, and he 
was a good man, living in a community where 
chewing tobacco among the members of the 
church was nearly as common as eating bread; 
and I knew if I could get a doubt in that man's 



WORDS THAT BURN 107 

mind in regard to tobacco, then it would be a 
sin for him to use it, and he would give it up. 
I told him it was "filthiness of the flesh/' and all 
filthiness would have to be abandoned. He saw 
it and gave it up; for to him it was sin, the en- 
trance of the Word gave light. "He that hath 
respect of persons committeth sin." God says so. 
I have thought this is for preachers especially. 
I have been told by members of the church where 
I have been in meetings, "If you could only get 
that man he would be such an addition to the 
church. " What did they mean? Simply this — 
he had money, had influence and position in so- 
ciety. God cares no more for a millionaire than 
a tramp. All souls are precious in His sight. We 
dare not be respecters of persons. God says it 
is sin. I visited a dying woman one time, and 
as she told me her story, I pitied her from the 
bottom of my heart. She was one of the neglect- 
ed ones. She told me, "Once I belonged to 
church. I lived in a little log house; the pastor 
went right by my house again and again, and 

went to the big house of Mr. , over on 

the hill. I was a poor woman, and I rebelled so 
against that treatment, I backslid. " She had 
been neglected. That pastor — no, he was not a 
pastor, for a real pastor would not have done 



io8 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

it — was a respecter of persons, and sinned. God's 
Word for it. 

He that is born of God — that is, he that is 
converted — is a partaker of the Divine nature. 
Godly means like God. Partaker of the Divine 
nature means godly. Not, he that is sanctified, 
but he that is born of God, partakes of the Spirit 
of God. If any man has not the Spirit of Christ 
he is none of His. I was visiting once with my 
wife, and called on a woman who, while in pov- 
erty knew God as very few know Him. When 
we entered she was eating dry bread and drink- 
ing water. I revolted at the sight and asked for 
permission to go and get her something. She 
was living in a room, all alone; had two boys 
well able to take care of her, but they had women 
of fashion for their wives, and not one of the 
wives wanted this old saint around. She said to me 
when I wanted to go and get something for her : 
"Oh, this is all I need; I have plenty." I sat 
there with my wife talking to her and the sen- 
tences that fell from her lips were like strings 
of pearls. We were talking about being like Je- 
sus. My wife sat there weeping and said to this 
old saint, "I often wish I were more like Him." 
And then came the reply which I have told often 
to the comfort of many saints: "Child, if there 



WORDS THAT BURN 109 

is any resemblance, it shows we are in the fam- 
ily" Thank God for that. Partakers of the Di- 
vine nature. Sons and daughters of God. 

"He that buildeth the things which once he 
destroyed transgresseth the law." Well, then, 
he sins, for all transgression of the law is sin. 
It means, if I ever quit a thing because it was 
morally wrong, then afterward went back to it, 
then I sinned. Is that right? Seems to me that 
God says so in this Word. Let us stick to the old 
Book. I was preaching down in Kentucky, in a 
grove, where there are a number of professors 
of holiness who raise tobacco, and I had not 
been there long before God gave me a message 
that uncovered the sin and stirred these native 
tobacco users and growers. One man under deep 
conviction threw away his pipe and tobacco, 
and some of the Saints! came to him and asked 
him, "Did you throw that away because Kulp 
told you to, or did God?" And soon he went 
back to his vomit, and sinned. I was at a meet- 
ing in Indiana, and there was a man at the altar 
who was much troubled; he was raising tobacco 
on shares with another man, and he came to 
me and asked me what he should do. I told him 
he could keep his word with the other man, but 
must get out of the business forever. Some of 



no THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

this same crowd who were there went to him and 
said, "We have raised tobacco all our lives and 
it never hurt us." And they hindered that man 
in his quest after God. 

God is love, and every one that loveth is born 
of God. If you are godly, you will love, and 
love the unlovely, for that is what He does. We 
cannot carry enmity in our hearts against anyone 
and keep right with God. We can love people 
we do not like. How can we? Let me tell you. 
We like people who are congenial. We love 
their company; we make friends of them; we 
esteem them highly. There are other folks who 
are not congenial. We do not like them, but we 
must love them and we do. They have souls; 
Jesus died for them. Perhaps you are not con- 
genial to them, and they may not like you. But 
the Spirit of Jesus will not allow us to have any- 
thing in our hearts against them. I was at a 
prayer meeting one night where there was a 
woman who had been seeking God for two years, 
and she was willing to do anything that He 
asked — but one — and that was, forgive the man 
who killed her brother. He was insane, and be- 
came violently so. They had to send for officers 
to take him to the Insane Asylum. When they 
came one of them was afraid of him, and as he 



WORDS THAT BURN in 

was violent, he drew his revolver and shot him, 
and killed him. Every time that woman came to 
the altar God would ask her, "Will you forgive 
the man who killed your brother ?" And every 
time in her heart she said "No," and went away 
unsaved. But this night, a rainy night — oh, it 
pays to go to meeting on rainy nights — God 
again asked her, "Will you forgive the man who 
killed your brother?" And she said, "O God, 
as I hope for forgiveness from Thee, I do now 
forgive the man who killed my brother." And 
she came through. I was preaching at a certain 
church and saw in the meeting a man who was 
under deep conviction. I went to him and urged 
him to be a Christian. He looked at me and said, 
"Must I forgive everybody in order to be a Chris- 
tian?" And I said, "Yes, sir." "Then," said he, 
"I will never be one." I could sympathize with 
that man, if I dared. His mother was left a 
widow with small children, and in the hour of 
midnight a man got into the house and outraged 
that mother, and now this man, a stalwart-look- 
ing fellow, declared, "I will never be a Chris- 
tian if I must forgive that fellow." Yet the 
Word tells us Jesus prayed, "Father forgive 
them," and Stephen prayed, "Lay not this sin to 
their charge." If we forgive not men their tres- 



ii2 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

passes, neither will our heavenly Father forgive 
us our trespasses. Forgive as we hope to be for- 
given. 

God is love, and the Book declares, "Every one 
that loveth is born of God." When a soul is really 
converted it wants to do something for them who 
have despitefully used it. Major Baker, of Bos- 
ton, told me one day that there was a certain 
man whom he positively did not like. But the 
next day after he met God he went down the 
street and he saw this man standing by the side 
of the curb alongside of a mule, and said he, "My 
heart so overflowed with love to that man that 
I actually loved the mule alongside of him." It 
was said of Fenelon, "If you want to get him to 
pray for you, just abuse him and he will be sure 
to do it." No wonder that a noted sinner came 
from his home saying, "If I stayed a half-hour 
longer with Fenelon I should be a Christian in 
spite of myself." 

"Whosoever is born of God overcometh the 
world." Conversion makes one an overcomer. I 
know a little woman who had a hard time getting 
through to God. She was a "dresser," liked 
feathers and flowers and jewelry, and she was a 
long time saying yes to God. She was at the 
altar — you see I believe in an altar, an old- 



WORDS THAT BURN 113 

fashioned mourners' bench — and came night 
after night ; but one night she said "Yes" to God 
—a yes that covered all the things that He asked 
for. She stripped for the race. She took of! 
her rings, her ribbons, all her fashions, and in 
twenty-four hours after she was converted the 
Lord sanctified her in five minutes. She said she 
had so much to do to get converted that she had 
no trouble getting sanctified. She was an over- 
comer from the beginning. I was in the habit 
of going to church with my parents when I was 
a boy, and I always sat with my father. I was 
not allowed to sit in the back part of the church 
and misbehave, while my father prayed and sang 
and shouted up front. They were in a protract- 
ed meeting and it was protracted through several 
weeks, souls being at the altar and praying 
through. But there was one woman who came 
night after night, and never seemed to get any- 
where. I was always walking with my parent* 
when I went home after the meeting was out at 
night, and they would stop at the various corners 
and talk awhile, and say goodbye, and so one 
night they were discussing this woman who did 
not get through, and finally one old saint, Aunt 
Kitty Crumley, said, "Well, she will get through 
when she takes oflf that big cameo breastpin." 



ii4 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Of course I was all ears just then> and when I 
went to church after that I was "all eyes." I 
wanted to see her "get through," and as I did 
not know what getting through meant, I was 
quite certain I would learn when she took off the 
breastpin, for I could see and know that. So I 
watched her every night, and one night up went 
her hands and off came the pin, and she went 
through. Oh, yes, there is something in it. He 
that is converted overcometh the world. All its 
fashions, all its customs, all its laws, and are 
free from sin. Sometime ago a beautiful young 
lady came to me dressed in the garb that becom- 
eth holiness and the house of God, and said, "I 
want to give you this," and she handed me a 
string of real pearls — not the Woolworth kind, 
but the real things. I gave them to the Bible 
School to be sold for the Rescue work, or Mis- 
sions — just as the Lord led. 

All unrighteousness is sin. Is this so? God 
says so in the Word. Well, now, take this truth, 
will you. It is a most unrighteous thing to owe 
a man a dollar when you have a dollar in your 
pocket with which you might pay him. That dol- 
lar is not yours. There has been reproach 
brought on the church because some folks are so 
loose about paying their debts. I was one time 



WORDS THAT BURN 115 

enlarging a church, and asking folks for money. 
I went to the grocer, supposing that as the church 
was so near his property that he would consider 
the improvement and give me a donation. When 
I asked him he said, "Yes, I will give you the 
bills I have against the members." To him who 
knoweth to do good, pay his debts, and doeth it 
not, to him it is sin. If you are not able to pay, 
go see your creditor — do not dodge around the 
corner; tell him you are embarrassed, and that 
you will pay as soon as you have an opportunity. 
If you want people to believe in you, you must 
show them the goods. By their fruits ye shall 
know them. John Finch, of Nebraska, said one 
time, "Every neighborhood ought to have a re- 
vival once a year for the sake of the storekeep- 
ers." I was in a meeting a few weeks ago and 
a man and wife agreed to sell their home, and 
then go back to the old community where they 
once lived, and pay up all they owed. There will 
be a surprise when that saved couple go around 
to see the old creditors and shout while they pay 
up the old bills. I am believing the merchants 
will be willing to invest in that kind of an expe- 
rience, and will believe in the salvation of a man 
who sells his home that he may pay his old debts. 
That man and wife can sing now, "It is real, 



u6 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

yes, it is real, thank God, I know it is real." A 
man came to me sometime ago and holding up 
a piece of paper he said, "Do you see that?" Of 
course I saw it, and asked what it was. And he 
said, "That is a receipt from the Grand Trunk R. 
R. I rode on the bumpers sometime before I was 
converted, and the thing troubled me .so I wrote 
to the R. R. Co., and asked them what the fare 
was from Battle Creek to South Bend. And 
when I found out I wrote them, sent them the 
money and told them of the circumstance. They 
thanked me and sent this receipt." I am thinking 
just now that the R. R. Cos. would all be glad 
for a revival all over the land. Real righteous- 
ness settles up whenever it can, and all unright- 
eousness is sin. 

He that believeth on the Son of God hath the 
witness in himself. He knows whom he hath 
believed, and knows he is saved from sin. Read 
it carefully. He was manifested to take away 
our sins. He shall be called Jesus, for He shall 
save His people from their sins. Behold the 
Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
world. If we confess our sins He is faithful 
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us 
from all unrighteousness. By the grace of God 
Jesus Christ tasted death for every man. The 



WORDS THAT BURN 117 

grace of God which bringeth salvation hath ap- 
peared unto all men, teaching us that denying all 
ungodliness, we should live soberly, righteously 
and godly, in this present world, looking for the 
gracious appearing of the great God, our Savior 
Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for 
us that He might purify unto Himself a peculiar 
people. Get it ! Did you ? In this present world 
and now, He wants some folks who will illus- 
trate by godly living His power to save unto the 
uttermost. A man who was seeking earnestly 
said to a worker, "Give me a promise that I may 
grasp it." One was quoted and he said, "That 
is what I want." He believed it and God saved 
him for Jesus' sake. Believe it, and live it, and 
you have hastened the coming of our Lord. 



n8 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 



VII 
"HAVING NO HOPE" 

"Having no hope" (Eph. 2:12). 

There only two classes of people in this audi- 
ence — the righteous and the wicked; the saved 
and the unsaved; the converted and the uncon- 
verted. We find the two classes in the church. 
You will find them in our campmeetings. You 
will find them in our Conventions. To which class 
do you belong? The converted, or the uncon- 
verted ? The saved, or the unsaved ? The right- 
eous, or the wicked? You belong to one or the 
other. Do you remember when you were con- 
verted? Do you know where you were convert- 
ed ? Are you living the life of a righteous man ? 
Are you living the life of a saved woman? I 
am not talking to you about your membership 
in the church; I am not talking about the years 
gone by, when you put your name upon a church 
record. Are you saved tonight? Have you a 
family altar in your home? Have you a place 
of secret prayer? Are you in the habit of feed- 



WORDS THAT BURN 119 

ing your soul on the Word of God ? It is a very 
easy matter to get located here. The Holy Spirit 
is absolutely faithful. God is true. The Word 
of God is the sword of the Spirit. Where do you 
belong tonight? If before I get through preach- 
ing, if before the midnight hour should strike, 
you were to be called into eternity with your 
present experience, where would you land ? What 
would be your eternal destiny ? Listen ! For the 
saved, for the righteous, for the new creature in 
Christ Jesus — an eternal Heaven; for the un- 
saved, in the church and out — an eternal Hell. 

Listen to this! My Bible declares positively 
that the state of the wicked is one of appalling 
horror. No hope ! " Having no hope," and 1 
think just now somebody is saying, "Ah, preach- 
er, that does not mean me ; I hope to go to heav- 
en." I want to ask you, "Are you saved?" If 
you are unsaved you have no hope. Any man 
who is not in Christ Jesus, and Christ Jesus in 
him, has no hope. I know what you mean, you 
mean you have a desire. There is a vast differ- 
ence between a desire and a hope, and I believe 
that old Bible; I believe it from Genesis to Rev- 
elation; I believe every line that there is in it. 
I believe the Scriptures are profitable for instruc- 
tion of the saved, and the unsaved, and that Bible 



120 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

declares most emphatically in my text, that the 
sinner has no hope. 

What hope has an unrepentant man? Can 
you tell me? What have you that is lasting? 
What have you that is permanent? What have 
you that is inspiring? Nothing, nothing what- 
ever. Have you wealth? You cannot take it 
with you. Have you acres? You cannot take 
them with you. Have you reputation ? You can- 
not take it with you. The only thing that a man 
can take with him into eternity is his character — 
just what God and your wife know you to be. 
Beloved, the unsaved man, the unsaved woman 
in this congregation, has no hope in this life. 
Decay is written on everything. The pulse is 
beating funeral marches to the grave ; the heart, 
seventy heartbeats a minute toward eternity — 
without any hope, without any Christ, without 
any salvation, going forward to eternal damna- 
tion — not because Christ did not die, not because 
it is not true that by the grace of God Jesus 
Christ tasted death for every man, but because 
every unsaved man, every unsaved woman in 
this congregation is going forward to eternity, 
tramp! tramp! tramp! over the crucified body of 
the Son of God, over a mother's prayers, over 
the pleadings of the Holy Ghost, over the prayers 



WORDS THAT BURN 121 

of Jesus Christ — going forward to a devil's hell, 
not because salvation has not been provided, but 
because "ye would not." And the man who re- 
sists and grieves the Holy Ghost, the man who 
crucifies the Son of God afresh, the man who 
rejects the truth of God, the man who sits in the 
pew and steels and hardens his heart against 
the Word of God and holds it aloof from him, 
and says, "I will not," that man lives without 
hope, is without hope in this life, and — listen to 
this! — is without hope in the life to come. An 
eternal existence, and nothing to sweeten it ! The 
life in the world, now a thing of the past — the 
soul in eternity to live forever! Exist forever! 
Think forever ! Remember forever ! And nothing 
in all that eternal existence to sweeten one mo- 
ment of that eternity. "Son, remember!" Re- 
member what? Back there you had the Word 
of God. Back there you had the thirty-nine 
books of the Old Testament. Back there you had 
gracious providences. Back there you had the 
Spirit of God striving with you. 

Remember! Here is a young man who came 
to Jesus, but now he is lost, and in hell he lifted 
up his eyes, and he begins to think of his past. 
Nothing in all that past to sweeten that exist- 
ence. "I went to Jesus; I believed Him to be 



122 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

the Son of God; I believed He could answer the 
query of my soul, satisfy my hunger — I went to 
Him and said, 'Good Master, what shall I do to 
inherit eternal life?^ And He made known to 
me the conditions. He said, 'Go, and sell that 
thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow 
me, and thou shalt have treasures in heaven.' 
Yes, I remember, but I said, 'No.' I looked at 
my possessions, the things of this life, my posi- 
tion, and I said, 'No/ and I damned my own 
soul/' 

Here is another soul in eternity; once had 
houses; once had farms; once had barns; once 
had acres ; once was rich ; the earth was bringing 
forth plentifully. Listen to him in eternity: "I 
look back there, and I said to my soul: 'Soul, 
take thine ease; thou hast much goods laid up 
for many years ; eat, drink, and be merry/ God 
said, 'Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be re- 
quired of thee/ The goods are back there in a 
barn, but my soul is poverty stricken. I am lost, 
and I am lost forever. I was a fool in time, and 
I will be a fool for all eternity." 

Oh, the awful thought — without hope in this 
life, and without hope in eternity! To go from a 
campmeeting like this, to go from a home where 
you had a mother's prayers, where you had a 



WORDS THAT BURN 123 

father's prayers, where you had a family altar. 
Somebody preaching on this platform since this 
campmeeting began, said they had a good, old- 
fashioned Methodist home. That is the kind I 
had. I never knew a time in my father's house 
when they did not pray ; I never knew a time they 
did not have a family altar. There never was 
a time that this boy could not go home and go to 
the foot of the stairs and hear somebody upstairs 
praying. Thank God for my father's prayers! 
Thank God for my father's life! The preacher 
in whose meetings I went to the altar thought it 
was his sermon that moved me ; he thought I was 
one of his converts. No, sir; the thing that won 
me for God was my father's prayers. God an- 
swered my father's prayers. But think of it! — 
a young man can live in a home where there is a 
praying father, where there is a praying mother, 
can listen to the truth of God, can pass that truth 
by, can be convicted by the Spirit and resist those 
convictions, can come to a meeting like this and 
get Gospel truth, backed by the Holy Ghost, and 
still resist, then lie down and die and wake up 
in eternity lost forever, no hope here, no hope in 
the dying hour; and you wake up in eternity, 
and look back and think, "Father prayed for me. 
Mother prayed for me. I was surrounded by 



124 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Gospel influences. I knew the old Bible was true 
— father and mother lived it. Christ died for me. 
I was under conviction again and again. The 
Spirit of God pled with me. But I am lost/' No 
hope in this life, and no hope in the future. 
Nothing in the past, nothing in the present, noth- 
ing in the future. What is it ? Everlasting tor- 
ment. 

See that man die. He has no hope. He is 
coming down to a deathbed. Come, let us^ go, 
let us stand alongside of him. If you would 
stand alongside of as many deathbeds as this 
preacher has stood by, you would believe when 
you saw the dying sinner and heard him pray, 
that there was a need of salvation now. Wait a 
moment! You say, "Oh, yes; I had some friends 
who died unsaved, and they never said a word. 
They died quietly; they manifested no fear." Do 
you know the reason why? Because the doctor 
drugged them before they died. If the doctors 
did not drug the dying sinner, you could not stay 
in their room. They would scream, they would 
yell, they would beg, they would pray. A man 
one time — he and I were friends together, had 
been soldiers, knew each other well — told me 
about his wife dying. He said, "George, Lou 
died so beautifully. She never said a word, had 



WORDS THAT BURN 125 

no fear whatever." She died a sinner, she died 
drugged and without hope. No hope in this life, 
no hope in eternity! I do not wonder that 
preacher this morning got down over this altar, 
got down on his knees, and said, "I am not clear, 
and I want to be satisfied." It is an awful thing 
to live unsatisfied. Ah ! you may be in the church, 
you may be baptized, you may have partaken of 
the sacrament, you may have your name on the 
church record, you may die and some preacher 
stand up and tell what an exemplary church 
member you have been, but unless you have been 
born of the Spirit, unless you have an increasing; 
experience — the path of the just shineth brighter 
and brighter — unless you have more salvation 
tonight than you have had in all your life, to 
die in your condition would be to go to hell. 
There is no hope for the unrepentant sinner fc Oh, 
the old Bible says so ; I am sticking to the Book. 
"Having no hope, and without God." A Christ- 
less life; a Christless deathbed; a Christless 
shroud; a Christless casket; Christless at the bar 
of God; Christless throughout eternity. "Having 
no hope." Went by the family altar. Went by 
the old Bible. Went by a mother's prayers. Went 
by Sinai, as it rolled and thundered, and pealed, 
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Went by 



126 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Calvary, with its cross reeking, dripping with 
Divine blood. Went by it — what for? To go to 
hell because you loved sin better than you loved 
God. Say, beloved, just as sure as God is on 
the throne, just as sure as that old Book is true, 
every unsaved man, every unrepentant man in 
this congregation tonight is without hope. You 
have got to be separated from sin, you have got 
to give up sin. You live in the church, you have 
your name on the church record, going along just 
as hopeless as the unrepentant sinner outside; 
for there is no difference between an unrepentant 
sinner in the church and one outside. 

Listen to this. I was riding in the cars; I 
think it was up at Ashland, and I read a notice 
of an Insurance Company. It went like this: 
"If people today could read the death notices in 
the paper week after next, they would take out 
life insurance." Oh, if some men and women in 
this congregation could read the death 
notices three months hence — six months 
hence — you would run to this altar. Lis- 
ten! Death is on your track. The seeds 
of death are already sown in your frame. 
You are staggering toward eternity un- 
der a weight of sin that would sink you through- 
out eternal ages, ever down and down and down, 



WORDS THAT BURN 127 

the darkness growing darker and darker 
throughout eternity. Because provision was not 
made? No! No! No! Christ "by the grace of 
God tasted death for every man." Every sinner 
is invited. "Whosoever will, let him come. ,, 
"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow." You say, "Yes, Preacher, 
I know that." Yes, you know it, and 
you are trampling it under your feet, 
trampling on the promise of God that you 
might be partaker of the Divine nature, and you 
are going forward to a devil's hell — not because 
you may not be saved, but because you will, not 
yield yourself unto God. The sin of the men and 
women in this congregation is not your drunken- 
ness; it is not your thieving; it is not your lying; 
it is not murdering your unborn children, or run- 
ning around with neck and shoulders bare, excit- 
ing the lust of men in street cars; but listen to 
this: Your sin is rejection of Jesus Christ; it 
is unbelief. "The Spirit, when He is come, shall 
convince the world of sin, because they believe 
not on me." If you believed God's Word you 
would be at this altar. "Having no hope." The 
unrepentant sinner has no hope. 

Now, again. You are condemned already — 
you who are out of Christ You say, "Oh, no; 



128 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

we are not condemned until we get to the judg- 
ment." That is a lie of the devil. I believe the 
Bible. Listen to this : "If our hearts condemn us, 
God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all 
things." You are condemned already. The only 
thing that keeps you out of hell is the mercy of 
God. "Because sentence against an evil work is 
not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the 
sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." That 
is God's Word. 

Young man, you were here at this campmeet- 
ing last year. God has spared you. You are 
harder tonight than you were last year — farther 
away from God. You have been heaping up 
darkness and tribulation, and anguish against the 
day of wrath. Are you ready to accept of the 
conditions? Listen! "Without hope." Knell of 
eternal despair! I drove one day by a funeral 
into a graveyard. Just as soon as the hearse 
entered the yard, the sexton saw them coming, 
and he began to ring a bell. Oh, so dolefully did 
it ring out! It meant another person passed out 
of time into eternity. I have this thought. The 
deep, dark, doleful bells of damnation are ring- 
ing all the time. Hell is as jubilant as hell can 
be every time a sinner goes by Calvary. Every 
time a sinner, with feet speckled red with the 



WORDS THAT BURN 129 

atoning blood of Jesus Christ, enters the con- 
fines of the damned, again the bells ring out, 
deep, doleful, dark, and the ravens of despair 
perched all over the rugged peaks of an eternal 
hell, cry out, "No hope! No hope!" Without 
hope back there upon earth, without hope on a 
deathbed, without hope in hell, and without hope 
forever. Write it on the sinner's coffin — "No 
hope!" Write it on his grave — "No hope!" Write 
it on his tombstone — "No hope!" Write it on 
the clouds of God Almighty's justice — "No 
hope!" Write it on the judgment bar of God — 
(( No hope!" Then listen to the chorus of the 
voices ringing throughout the caverns of eternal 
damnation — it is one thing over and over again 
—"No hope! No hope! No hope! No hope! No 
hope!" 

Oh, beloved, it is an awful thing to crucify 
the Son of God, it is an awful thing to grieve 
the Holy Ghost. I do not wonder, Brother 
Compton, you say, "Mind the Spirit/' I do not 
wonder you say, "Mind God." So many people 
are not minding God. You are rejecting the 
truth, resisting the Spirit, you are cursing your 
own selves, wrapping your arms around the pil- 
lars of the temple and bringing it down upon 
your own head — and then an eternal hell, "hav- 



130 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

ing no hope." Did you ever read the other part 
of the verse? — "and without God in the world." 
No hope in hell, no promise of relief, no ray of 
light, no gleam of a coming day, none whatever ; 
increasing, intense darkness. No hope in hell 
forever, no expectation in hell, no change in hell, 
only for the worse; fires hotter, darkness more 
intense. 

Last Wednesday, up in Battle Creek, I went 
through a cyclone. The wind had been blowing, 
with some little rain, and cold. The cloud came 
from the southeast, assumed a funnel shape, and 
started over toward Battle Creek; it began to 
roar, and four hundred thousand dollars' worth 
of property was destroyed in just a few minutes. 
When it was over people came rushing out of the 
houses. Some houses were lifted off the founda- 
tions, others crushed down in the cellars. There 
were live wires, telegraph poles and trees in the 
street. But listen ! It only lasted three minutes. 
A French woman came running up the street. 
She said, "One time somebody told me, 'If you 
never prayed before, go down and look at the 
ocean when it is angry, then you will pray; but/ 
she said, 'if you never prayed before, just get 
in a cyclone, and you will pray/ " My wife heard 
her, and said, "I began praying long ago, glory 



WORDS THAT BURN 131 

to God, but I prayed through!'' Listen! That 
dark cloud only lasted three minutes; but in hell 
the cyclone of God Almighty's wrath lasts 
throughout eternity — roaring, swirling, shriek- 
ing winds of hell, and the soul that rejected 
Jesus Christ, there under the wrath of the om- 
nipotent God forever and ever. I am talking to 
dying men and women; I am talking to people 
who are making a profession of religion. You 
may have your names on the church record, but 
you have not an experimental knowledge of sal- 
vation. If you should die tonight, you would go 
to hell. The sinner in the church has no more 
hope than sinners outside of it. I am talking about 
unrepentant sinners. God help us to tell the 
truth. Do not resist it. Hug up close to the 
truth. 

Listen ! Darkness, misery, suffering — forever! 
Remorse. Abandoned of God. Here God even 
in the unrepentant sinner's pathway lets the sun 
shine on him, lets the rain fall on him, lets the 
ground bring forth for him, lets the stars shine 
for him, and the moon shed its pale, silvery light 
upon him, warns him by the example of godly peo- 
ple. He may hedge him in for a while by a 
mother's prayers; he is not yet abandoned of 
God. If the angels of God could weep, they 



132 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

would look over the battlements of God and weep 
over that young man that is going to hell over 
the blood of Jesus Christ. But at last death 
comes, and the man is abandoned of God. What 
an awful thing ! Without God in this world, and 
then abandoned of God throughout all eternity, 
and shut up with devils, and with whoremongers, 
and drunkards, and everything vile and unclean 
— not because God would not save vou, but be- 
cause you would not let Him save you. "God 
hath not appointed us unto wrath, but to obtain 
salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

One time a boy nineteen years of age, died in 
a penitentiary, and the chaplain went to him and 
said, "Young man, where do your folks live? 
Mother living?" "Yes, sir." "Does your 
mother know where you are?" "No, sir; but, 
chaplain, when I am gone, I would like her to 
know I am dead, but don't tell her where I died. 
Don't tell mother where I died." He died in the 
penitentiary and did not want mother to know. 
Think of it! Not that mother who went down 
to death's door for you, not that mother who 
watched over your early years when your tottling 
footsteps would have taken you into danger — 
not that mother, but the Christ that left the glory 
that He had with the Father, the Christ before 



WORDS THAT BURN 133 

whom angels bow, and cry, "Holy, holy, holy 
art Thou," the Christ that took upon Himself 
our nature, came down to this old earth and made 
the land holy because He went there, went up 
to Calvary and suffered and died on the cross, 
then down into the grave, and snatched the 
scepter from the cruel monster, and went up 
from Mount Olivet and sits on the Mediatorial 
Throne, and is praying for you — that Christ 
knows your sinful rejection, knows your rebel- 
lion, knows you are the author of your own dam- 
nation; and that Christ tonight puts this camp- 
meeting, these sermons, across your pathway in 
order that you may be saved. Brother, do not 
preach to me, "It is a solemn thing to die." God 
bless you! it is a solemn thing to live! To live 
lightly, triflingly, frivolously, carelessly, saying, 
"No," to Cod, rejecting the truth of God, griev- 
ing the Holy Spirit; God tugging at your heart- 
strings, putting you under conviction, surround- 
ing you with the prayers of loved ones, giving 
you Gospel sermons, giving you altar call upon 
altar call, and yet to go into eternity saying "No" 
to God. No hope! The unrepentant sinner has 
no hope. Here is the Word of God for it. "Hav- 
ing no hope, and without God in the world." A 



134 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

reign of despair; despair in the midst of awful 
surroundings. 

I read the other day about the men in the 
trenches. It said the British and the French 
were in the trenches, and for three days they 
were pouring fire on the trenches of the Germans. 
For one whole year they had been building mines, 
and then for three days they threw a curtain of 
fire, shell after shell, on the trenches of the Ger- 
mans. At the battle of Gettysburg both sides 
only threw thirty-three thousand shells in three 
days, but over there they threw thirty-three thou- 
sand shells in three minutes, always throwing on 
the trenches of the enemies, and men come out 
from those trenches insane ; they lost their reason 
under that awful fire. But listen! That only 
lasted three days, but the curtain of fire in hell 
lasts through eternity. "The smoke of their tor- 
ment ascendeth forever and forever !" Who says 
so? God Almighty. Eternal remorse! Eternal 
suffering ! 

There is a man in our city whose wife was 
dying of a cancer. She was crying, "Husband, 
if you love me, kill me ! If you love me, kill me ! 
I am suffering. I am going to die anyhow; it is 
only a question of a few weeks — husband, if you 
love me, kill me." That husband went to the 



WORDS THAT BURN 135 

doctor. He said, "Doctor, will my wife die?" 
"Surely, sir." "Doctor, how long?" "Well 
maybe two weeks. She may die in a week." 
"Well, doctor, she is crying, 'Kill me/ she is ap- 
pealing to me, she is saying, 'If you love me, 
put me out of my misery/ Doctor, I want you 
to come over and give her a drug that will put her 
to sleep forever/ , The doctor said, "Do you 
mean it?" He said, "If you do not do it, I will 
kill her myself and put her out of her misery." 
And that doctor went over and gave her the drug 
and said, "In two hours she will be beyond pain." 
Listen to this. When the sinner in hell, with all 
of his awful suffering, seeks death, death flees 
from him. There is no morphine in hell. You 
cannot commit suicide in hell. It is an awful 
thing to die without Christ, having no hope, re- 
jecting Jesus and going to hell over the crucified 
Son of God, and that is what every unsaved sin- 
ner here tonight is doing. Remorse ! Separation ! 
Darkness! Dying! Forever and forever! 

I lived in the city of Philadelphia when I was 
a boy. Up at Haddington they had a cancer hos- 
pital, and men would come out of there with their 
jaws tied up — cancer doing its work ; with an eye 
tied up — cancer doing its work; with their body 
swathed. Listen! They were hopeless. There 



136 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

was no hope. On their countenances was writ- 
ten, "No hope, no hope." Just a little while, and 
then death. On the countenances of the lost in 
hell is written in black letters of despair, "No 
hope; no hope!" On the walls of hell the only 
mottoes they have read, "No hope ; no hope !" The 
fiery billows of an eternal hell that wrap them- 
selves around the naked soul of an impenitent 
sinner, they roar, "No hope!" and the wail of 
the damned, as they gnash their teeth and bite 
their lips, and chew their tongues, and curse the 
people that told them the truth, and the people 
that did not live right before them, their one cry 
is, "No hope; no hope!" Brother, what are you 
going to do? I repeat what Brother Compton 
said, "Mind God." "Let the wicked forsake his 
way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and 
let him return unto the Lord, and he will have 
mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will 
abundantly pardon. " 

I was out in Idaho, and I preached one night 
to a very attentive congregation, and about the 
first or second night of the meeting a great big 
stalwart fellow sat in the seats and listened to 
me — the leading man of the community — as fine 
a specimen of humanity, physically, as I ever saw 
in all my life. I gave my altar call, and this great 



WORDS THAT BURN 137 

big fellow came up and put his foot upon a chair 
and said, "I want to say something to you. Do 
you think there is any hope for me?" I said, 
"Yes, there is hope for you." He said, "You 
don't know what a sinner I have been" — and he 
had been a sinner; was a man of means, a gam- 
bler and a drunkard, but he wanted God, and he 
said, "You don't know what a sinner I have 
been." I told him how Jesus could save to the 
uttermost, told him to get down, and I got down 
and prayed for him, and that fellow came 
through. Listen to this; I want to tell you to- 
night, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
be as white as snow." "Let the wicked forsake 
his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts : 
and let him return unto the Lord, and he will 
have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he 
will abundantly pardon." Is there any hope? 
Yes, for a repentant sinner. Yes, for the man 
that will forsake sin. Yes, for the man that will 
mind God tonight, there is hope. Calvary ap- 
peals, Pentecost appeals, the passing funeral pro- 
cession appeals, the tornadoes and the cyclones 
and the wars in Europe all appeal. Death is on our 
track. It will not be much longer till some of us 
will enter eternity. Have you got right with God? 
Have you availed yourself of the blood of Jesus 



138 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Christ? Oh, it is an awful thing. "Having no 
hope, and without God." But tonight God says, 
"Now is the accepted time, now is the day of sal- 
vation." Now, twelve minutes of nine. How 
many of you people are ready for heaven in two 
minutes? Oh, I was so glad in that cyclone I 
was saved. When the thing went by I said, 
"Come on," to my mother and wife; "we'll have 
a prayermeeting," and we got down on our knees 
right off and had a prayermeeting and thanked 
God for taking care of us. Oh, it is a blessed 
thing to know you are saved. Do you know it? 
Are you ready for heaven on a moment's notice ? 
Have you been converted? Have you the wit- 
ness of the Spirit? Do you know that you are 
a new creature in Christ Jesus? Are your sins 
under the blood? Are you indwelt tonight by 
the Holy Ghost ? There is no hope without Jesus 
Christ. 

"Lord, I believe were sinners more 
Than sands upon the ocean shore, 
Thou hast for all atonement made, 
For all a ransom Thou hast paid." 

But, brother, you must accept of Jesus Christ as 
your Savior. Without that you have no hope, 
and tomorrow is eternity. 



WORDS THAT BURN 139 



VIII 

PURITY AND POWER 

"Let thy garments be always white and let thy 
head lack no ointment" (Eccles. 9:8). 

Power is lacking in the church today because 
it has forgotten, or overlooked, or neglected the 
words of the Book, "Come ye out from among 
them and be ye separate and I will be your God 
and ye shall be my people." "If any man will 
be my disciple let him take up his cross daily and 
follow me." We are called to separation, and 
God's people from the time He called out Abram 
from the land of the Chaldeans down to the pres- 
ent time are a called-out people. The word He- 
brew means, "the man from the other side." I 
doubt not this was given to Abram by the folks 
who knew he had come out. Worldliness today 
is paralyzing the efforts of the church, and the 
church is acknowledging it by the desperate ef- 
forts it is making to find a substitute for the 
ways of God. Purity and power are the heritage 
of the church, and the great lack of the church 



140 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

today. The church is seeking power while ignor- 
ing the command, "Be ye holy." Where there is 
purity, there is power. The Holy Spirit in His 
fullness comes only to a clean heart. No one can 
be a temple of the Holy Spirit who has not been 
made pure through the blood of Jesus. I have 
seen men down at the altar and going to them I 
have inquired, "What are you seeking? And the 
answer has been, "I am seeking power." One 
can seek power until the day of doom, and never 
get it. Power must not be the object. Jesus said, 
"Ye shall receive power, the Holy Ghost coming 
upon you." First, purity, then power. While the 
church and the world are yoked up together there 
is not power to rise above the worldliness that is 
in the church. The lunch room in the church has 
taken the place of the class room; the supper 
room has taken the place of the f< upper room." 
More people can be gotten out to a church social 
than to a prayer meeting, and all because there 
is an effort to please the world, and in so doing 
the truth of God is ignored. I know of two 
churches where the church and the moving pic- 
ture show were yoked up together, and the young 
people of the League were out on the streets 
selling tickets for the movie, and the proceeds 
were divided between the show and the church. 



WORDS THAT BURN 141 

Can anyone dare to go to God in prayer and 
ask His blessing on such an arrangement? 

Purity first, then power. These are insepara- 
ble. Jesus prayed, "Father, I pray not that thou 
wilt take them out of the world, but that thou 
wilt keep them from the evil that is in the world." 
Purity means separation, and separation means 
power with God and man. I have known preach- 
ers and laymen who were prominent in Lodge 
circles, but I never knew one of them that was 
active as a soul winner. No one can go through 
an ante-room where men are smoking and play- 
ing cards and telling smutty stories, one night, 
and the next night go to a prayer meeting or a 
preaching service and have any power with God. 
Come ye out — and it is the only come-out-ism 
that I know of that the Word calls for. 

The church in its earlier days was first pure, 
poor and persecuted. John Wesley dreaded the 
day when the church would get rich. George 
Fox dreaded the time when the church would 
have steepled houses. Today we have both, and 
if Wesley and Fox were to come back to earth 
today, it is a question to be considered where 
could they go to worship. Persecutions spread 
the fire in Apostolic days — and in later days, too. 
In a city in England one day two men were ar- 



142 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

rested for holding a meeting on the street. As 
the jail was crowded they could not put them in 
separate cells, so they were together. Of course 
they began to pray, and soon were singing like 
Paul and Silas of olden days, and then they be- 
gan to shout and the Sheriff said, "Separate 
those two men." The order was obeyed and one 
of them was put in a cell with a half drunken 
man. He began to talk to the fellow about his 
soul, and soon he had him down on his knees 
praying. There was a new name written down 
in heaven, and then there were three of them 
shouting. The Sheriff happening to come back 
(I think that God kept him away till the seeker 
got through), said to the jailer, "Didn't I tell 
you to separate those fellows?" "I did," said the 
jailer. "Well," said the Sheriff, "separate them 
again." And back came the answer, "If you do 
they will all get it." Oh, yes; this thing is catch- 
ing when you find the real thing. Jesus knew 
what He was talking about when He said, 
"Ye are my witnesses." The trouble is, we are 
not hot enough today to spread the fire or to in- 
vite the world's persecutions. It will come if we 
are true. "Marvel not if the world hate you. It 
hated me before it hated you." The servant is 
not above his Lord, and the world today hates 



WORDS THAT BURN 143 

godliness. The carnal mind is enmity against 
God, not subject to the law of God, neither in- 
deed can be. The church's business is to de- 
nounce sin. Jesus did it. The Apostles did it. 
The world, the flesh and the devil are the enemies 
of the church, to be opposed, not courted. The 
church might as well yoke up with the devil as 
with the world. I rejoice to see the Catholic 
Church in Paris and in France, through the 
voice of their Cardinal, announcing there will be 
no women allowed to enter the church who are 
not dressed "from the chin to the shin." Thank 
God for that. Why has not American Protes- 
tantism the grace and backbone to do the same 
thing? God knows it is needed. The average 
congregation today is as worldly in its dressing 
as the theater goers in the city theaters. Joseph 
Cook, of Boston, once said in one of his lectures, 
"The church that has the grace and courage to 
take the whip of cords and drive the money 
changers out of the temple will take America for 
Christ when it has two hundred people to the 
square mile." But where is the church that will 
do it? When the architect of the church build- 
ing draws his plans for the church today, he al- 
ways makes provision for the kitchen, and he 
does it because he knows the church demands it. 



144 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

But let us get down a little closer. The church 
is made up of units. The individual is the unit, 
and to him must come home the truth. God de- 
mands holiness of heart, and where there is holi- 
ness of life there will be power — with God and 
men. God deals with us as individuals. I have 
never yet seen the church in which all were ready 
for the call of God to revival work. I have been 
in the ministry forty-seven years, and in the pas- 
torate thirty-four years and a half, but I have 
never been foolish enough to wait until the 
church was all right before I began revival 
work. Whatsoever any two of you shall agree 
upon touching any one thing, it shall be done for 
you. That means a revival anywhere this side 
of hell if two will agree. God wants it, the 
church needs it, and the only work of the min- 
istry is to win souls for Christ — all other things 
must bend to this. "As the Father has sent me 
into the world, so have I sent you." "The Son 
of man came to seek and to save the lost." "Let 
him know that he which converteth a sinner from 
the error of his ways saveth a soul from death 
and hideth a multitude of sins." "The Spirit and 
the Bride say come, and let him that heareth say 
come." Oh, there is no evading it, the work of 



WORDS THAT BURN 145 

the individual and the church is to win souls for 
Christ. 

Heaven is pure, the saints are pure, their robes 
are clean, and God says without holiness no man 
shall see the Lord. Blessed are they that do 
His commandments, for they shall have a right 
to the tree of life and enter in through the gates 
into the city. It will not do to say, "Well, there 
are so few that live up to it." There are some 
who have the blessing. "Abram walked before 
God," and had the divine commendation. Enoch 
walked with God. Noah and Job were perfect 
men. God says so in the Word. Zechariah and 
Elizabeth walked in all the ordinances of God 
blamelessly. The command is, "Be ye perfect/' 
not in your head, but in your heart. Perfect in 
your motive, loving God with all the heart. God's 
commands are all enabling acts and the devil has 
never yet been able to get the enabling act strick- 
en out. It is not what you profess that amounts 
to so much; it is the life you live. Let God see 
you live the Word, practice the Book, and He 
will take care of all the rest. Show Him the life. 
One time there was a woman who died, and be- 
fore she passed away she said to her little daugh- 
ter, only eight years old, "Daughter, your papa is 
poor and you will have to do the best you can. 



146 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Mamma has taught you how to work, and you 
must do all you can to keep the little family to- 
gether." The little girl was a Christian, and did 
the best she could ; she worked till the little hands 
were calloused and then at thirteen she laid down 
to die. The neighbors gathered around and with 
tearful eyes watched her slowly going down, and 
they heard her say, "I will be so ashamed when I 
see Jesus." One of them said, "Why, darling, 
will you be ashamed?" The reply came, "I will 
not know what to say to Him." And then a 
neighbor said, "Dear, you will not have to say 
anything; just show Him your hands" Sure 
enough, those calloused hands would tell the 
story. So it is the life we must show, and one 
pure and clean life tells more than all the pro- 
fession that one may make that is not backed up 
by the life. God made man perfect, and through 
the Word of God and the Blood of Jesus, and the 
indwelling of the Holy Ghost, man is to be made 
so good and perfect that God can look down at 
him and be pleased with him. I know man has 
sinned. I know the power of evil, but I also 
know the power of grace to deliver and the power 
of the blood to cleanse from all sin. Do not leave 
God out of the problem. He can do and will do 
all we need and all He has promised, if we will 



WORDS THAT BURN 147 

simply let Him. Get the text, Let thy garments. 
etc., Let thy head, etc. Just let God have his 
way, and He can make you what you ought to 
be. 

Did you ever get the illustration that God gave 
an old holiness evangelist of long ago? The 
house of Israel, God's chosen people, had gone 
far astray, were given up to idolatry and sin, 
so much so that the prophet might well have 
thought it was a hopeless case. So God one day 
said to him,, "Prophet, I want you to go down to 
the potter's house, stay with him a while, and I 
will come see you sometime and you may tell me 
what you see." And the prophet went down to 
the potter's house and saw him busily at work 
on a vessel, and it was indeed beautiful; he ap- 
plied the wheel to it, he handled it as one who 
loved his work, and when he saw it was finished 
he put it up on the mantel and gazed at it as one 
who was conscious of having done a good work. 
Then to the astonishment of the old prophet, he 
went to the refuse heap, and he picked up a ves- 
sel that was very much marred, and he handled it 
so very carefully as though he actually loved it. 
He placed it on the wheel and pressed it so gently 
to it, and the prophet watched it to see what 
would be the outcome; and after a while he took 



148 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

that vessel that was so marred and which had 
been on the refuse heap and he seemed pleased 
with it, and he put it on the mantel and lo, it 
was as beautiful in the potter's eyes as the other. 
In a little while the Lord came to see the prophet, 
gave him a call and said, "Prophet, did you go 
down to the potter's house as I told you?" "Yes, 
Lord, I did." "Well, what did you see there?" 
And the prophet began and said, "Why, Lord, 
wh^n T went there he was working on a beautiful 
vessel and I watched him carefully; he handled 
it so easily and carefully, and it was a joy to 
watch him; and when he completed it he placed 
it upon the mantel and then stood and admired 
it, and Lord, so did I. But what astonished me 
the most, Lord, was this : the potter went to the 
refuse heap and picked up a broken and marred 
vessel, and he handled it with such care and so 
lovingly, and he placed it on the wheel and 
manipulated it, and worked so long with it, and 
seemed so anxious to make something of it. 
After a while he took it and placed it up along- 
side of the other one and Lord, it was beautiful" 
The Lord said, "Prophet, if the potter can take 
a broken and marred vessel that was once on the 
rubbish heap, a castaway, cannot I?" 



WORDS THAT BURN 149 

Yes, thank God, He can take broken, marred 
vessels, marred by sin, and make them all over. 
The Divine Potter can do it, can take the worst 
of cases and make new creatures out of them. 
He has done it, and He will do it every time He 
gets a chance. Some of us were not very far 
from the rubbish heap, but He took us and He 
bore with us and He made us over to be new 
creatures in Christ Jesus. He took a Saul of 
Tarsus and changed him into an apostle and a 
martyr. He took a wharf rat and river pirate 
like Jerry McAuley and made him all over, and 
he lived so close to God and did such a good work 
that when he died in New York City, he had 
the largest funeral the city had ever seen over 
any of its citizens. Judges and lawyers, preach- 
ers and laymen delighted to honor the man who 
was such a splendid sample of God's Divine 
handiwork. He had been on the rubbish pile, 
been a castaway, but God took him and made 
him all over. H took a Valentine Burke, and 
when he, an old jail bird, could not get a job 
because he had the marks of sin all over him and 
nobody wanted him around, he was so homely, 
when he got down and prayed, "O God, I have 
sinned so long I have become so homely that no 
one wants me around, or will hire me for any- 



150 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

thing. Lord, please make me goodlooking." And 
the Divine Potter who had made him all right 
inside, did as good a job on the outside, and he 
was promoted till he was the most trusted and 
honored man in the Sheriff's office in St. Louis. 
I was one time in a meeting and a man rose up 
and at once made for the altar. As he went one 
who knew how wicked and crooked the fellow 
had been said, "If God does anything for that 
fellow he will have to make him all over." Well, 
thank God ! that is just what He does, and what 
He proposes to do with each and every one who 
will come and let Him have His way. The joy 
bells of heaven rang as never before when it was 
announced that Manasseh, the most wicked king 
that ever sat on the throne, was saved, for there 
is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. 

God has made provision for cleansing away all 
sin. Let thy garments be always white. White, 
that means purity. There is a fountain opened 
unto the house of David for sin and uncleanness. 
Sin defiles, but the blood cleanses from all the 
defilement that sin has or can make. Never mind 
if people do throw mud at you, do not try to 
brush it off; you will only make it worse. If 
you are as hot as you ought to be it will dry 
quickly, and you can shake it off. He shall be 



WORDS THAT BURN 151 

called Jesus, because He shall save His people 
from all their sins. Just let Him have His way 
with thee. Yonder I see a splendid steamer on 
the St. Lawrence; she is sweeping along majest- 
ically and all on board are having a good time; 
they are going to shoot the Rapids and the far- 
ther they get down the river the faster the vessel 
goes. I see the Captain go to the bow and shading 
his eyes with his hand I see him looking anx- 
iously toward the shore. Soon a canoe shoots 
out into the middle of the stream, gets alongside 
the vessel, and is hauled up — canoe and all. The 
pilot takes his place at the wheel, and the Cap- 
tain and the mate and the crew just all sit down 
and let that Indian pilot have his way. He is 
straight as a pine tree, has an eye like an eagle, 
muscles like steel, and they let him have his 
way, they abandon themselves to the pilot. Look 
at the vessel; she is sweeping along through the 
waters, nearing the Rapids, going faster and 
faster. But they are all unconcerned; all they 
have to do is let the pilot have his way, and he 
knows where the deep waters are, where the dan- 
gerous rocks are, and soon they are in peaceful 
waters, because they let him have his way. So 
with us. All we have to do is to get the Pilot on 
board, abandon all to him and just let Him have 



152 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

His way, and we can rest knowing that in His 
hands all is well; and He cannot make any mis- 
takes; He will bring us to the desired haven. I 
have heard folks pray, "O God, have thy way," 
and I have thought, "Let Him have His way with 
thee, and all will be well." 

Let thy head lack no ointment. Anointing was 
for two parties — Kings and Priests, and under 
the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost in which we 
live, we all are Kings and Priests, and God will 
use us if we are kingly in his sight. There are 
anointings for service, and every time we go to 
battle we are in need of the anointing oil. Oil is 
a type of the Holy Spirit and we all admit "with- 
out Him we can do nothing." God says, "Tarry 
ye until ye — " and we are not ready to go out 
unless we are endued with power from on high. 
All the men God has signally used in the days 
gone by have been men who have tarried, wait- 
ed before Him. Mbody tells us distinctly of the 
time when he waited for the Holy Ghost. Finney, 
Purdy, Asbury, and all others who were great 
men for God in their time were men who had 
tarried at Jerusalem. If you want to be a soul 
winner, read the Acts of the Apostles, and see 
where their power came from. I had in my 
library a number of books written by men who 



WORDS THAT BURN 153 

were soul winners, for all through my ministry 
I have known the only thing a man can do, the 
only way to fulfill one's ministry, is to win souls. 
But one day it came to me to read the Acts and 
find out for myself how these men became such 
soul winners. And I found it out. So may you 
if you really want to. 

Priests were anointed for service, and so may 
you, so must you be, for as I said, in this Dis- 
pensation of the Holy Ghost, we are all priests 
unto God. It is the business of a priest to make 
intercession for others. Is there a greater need 
today for anything more than for men who will 
intercede, who will stay in their closets and pray 
for a lost world? Men and women who have 
the gift of the knees are wanted everywhere. 
Mr. Finney was accompanied by a man who 
would remain on his knees all the time that he 
would be preaching — just in prayer for God's 
blessing on the Word. Closet Christians are 
scarce, but are much needed. How it would en- 
courage the heart of the preacher if he knew 
some of his people were travailing in prayer 
while he was in the pulpit. Oh, how the church 
has forgotten that if we would do business for 
God we must first do business with God. First, 
do business with Him. Let thy head lack no 



154 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

ointment. God will empower you, if you will 
let Him do it. He will anoint you to pray if you 
really want to pray. And when the anointing 
comes, when the Spirit of intercession comes on 
you, then the answer will soon follow. Pay the 
price. Pray through, and know you have the 
answer. The Holy Ghost fell on all them that 
heard the Word. Claim it now, while I am 
preaching, while you are reading. Stay not out 
of your inheritance one moment longer. Heaven 
wants you to have it, earth knows you need it. 
your own soul cries out for God. Now is the 
accepted time, now is the day of your salvation. 
May God place on us all the spirit of earnest 
prayer. 



WORDS THAT BURN 155 

IX 
BE YE READY 

"Prepare to meet thy God" (Amos 4:12). 

I stood on the firing line, when I was a boy, 
just preparatory to going into battle on a charge, 

and Charley H , who, if he is alive yet, lives 

in South Easton, Pa., stood alongside of me. We 
knew we were facing the enemy and facing death, 
and the only preparation that he thought of was 
this: He said to me, "George, if anything hap- 
pens to me, you write my folks." That is the 
only thought he had about it. Inside of the next 
hour, during the progress of that battle, he 
might have been sent into eternity, but no 
thought of the future. 

We are facing eternity. Death is at our el- 
bow. Just the thickness of our ribs between us 
and an eternal heaven or an eternal hell, and God 
is doing His very best in order to get us in har- 
mony with Himself. I have listened to these men 
preach; 1 have said to myself, "They are God's 
messengers; they have God's messages, but how 
many are heeding ? How many are minding the 



156 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Holy Ghost? How many are in harmony with 
God? How many are ready to meet God on a 
moment's notice? How many have the witness 
of the Spirit, not only to their forgiveness, but 
to their cleansing? How many realize the sins of 
the past are under the blood? How many think 
for one moment that we are dealing with God?" 
And please remember this, we must do business 
with God before we can do business for God. 
One cannot work successfully for God unless one 
has the consciousness within oneself that oneself 
is right with God. Have you done business with 
God? Have you heard from heaven? Are you 
ready for whatever a day may bring forth ? The 
Old Testament and the New unite: "Prepare to 
meet thy God." "Be ye also ready; in such an 
hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." 
"To day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not 
your hearts." Men grow harder in a campmeet- 
ing, or they get nearer to God. Resisting the 
truth brings hardness of heart. You must do 
business with God. You cannot put God out of 
your life. There may be jangling voices all 
around you, but above them all, through them all, 
in the Word, by the Holy Spirit, in the provi- 
dences of God, you will hear my text — "Pre- 
pare!" Something more than singing; some- 



WORDS THAT BURN 157 

thing more than church membership; something 
more than profession; something more than 
campmeeting; something more than a periodical 
spasm. "Prepare !" Somewhere down the road — 
one block — one mile — one month — one year — to- 
morrow, it may be, but somewhere in that imme- 
diate future we must do business with God, on 
conditions, or be lost eternally. 

I was preaching down in Louisiana, was invited 
down there by a couple of ladies who were sanc- 
tified on these grounds a few years ago — was 
preaching in the courthouse, and some of the 
ladies came to me the next day and said, 
"Brother Kulp, the people don't like your propo- 
sition/' I thought to myself, "Proposition — 
propostion — proposition ?" And the Holy Ghost 
said to me, "What they don't like is God's condi- 
tions." That is the trouble with people now — they 
do not like to meet conditions. But you must, or 
be eternally damned, eternally lost. I should not 
wonder that while I am preaching, your life will 
come up before you. The Holy Ghost will give 
you a retrospective view of your life, and things 
you do not want to think of, things you do not 
like to think of, and things you would gladly 
hide, the Holy Ghost will bring them before you. 
You must do business with God, on God's terms, 



158 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

on God's conditions. Preparation to meet God 
implies that very thing. 

You take the Word and read it carefully, and 
find here that in the past men have had to deal 
with God. A world ignored Him, a race united 
in ignoring Him, but there came a time, not when 
the patience of God wore out, but there came a 
time when God was grieved as He looked at man 
in his sinfulness. And all the sins that they had 
in that day, all the sins before the Flood, all the 
sins that were in the cities of the plains, all the 
adulteries, all the licentiousness, all the bestiality, 
all the brutality that the carnal nature had before 
God sent the flood and wiped out a race, before 
He sent the fires on the cities of the plains, before 
He gathered the legions of Rome with their 
eagles, around the city of Jerusalem, this world 
has today, and sin is just as hateful as it was 
when God sent the flood and destroyed the ante- 
diluvians, or when He sent the fire and destroyed 
the cities of the plains. Sin is no joke. Sin is 
no dream. Sin is an awful, terrible reality. A 
ttian must meet it, and meet the consequences of 
it at the day of judgment. You try to put the 
messages away. Whenever you try to put a mes- 
sage of God away from you, God will not only 



WORDS THAT BURN 159 

repeat it, but He will add more to it. I will 
prove it. 

Jeremiah called for Baruch, and he said, "I 
want you to take it down carefully. I have a 
message from God for these people. Write it 
down carefully. Don't miss a word. Listen at- 
tentively." And Jeremiah repeated the message 
that God gave him, and Baruch wrote it down, 
w'ord for word, and after a while he read it to the 
nobles of the king, and they said, "Where did 
you get it?" "Got it from Jeremiah." "Did you 
take it down from his lips?" "Yes." "Word for 
word?" "Yes." "Just exactly as he said it?" 
"Yes." "Well, it means destruction, it means 
death, it means danger for the king." And they 
went to the king, and the king said, "I would 
like to hear it." They sent for Baruch, and Je- 
hudi borrowed from Baruch the message, and 
took it before the king, opened it and read it, 
and as he read it he took out his penknife and 
cut it off and threw it into the fire. Then he read 
further in the distasteful message. Say, listen! 
The message that is most distasteful to you, is 
the very message you need. I read an advertise- 
ment of a book the other day. Dr. Agan Beet, 
of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, in England, 



160 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

was the author of it. The title of the book was, 
"The Last Things/' and in that book he makes 
this remark, that men today do not dare to preach 
on hell as John Wesley preached it, and he even 
went farther, and said in these days they do not 
even dare to preach as Spurgeon preached fifty 
years ago. Listen ! On this campground we will 
preach anything God Almighty gives us. We 
have to preach the truth. Jesus Christ was pray- 
ing and He said, "Father, sanctify them through 
Thy truth. Thy Word is truth." And you want 
the truth, and when you get it you will get the 
Word, and the Word says, "Prepare to meet thy 
God." 

Jehudi took the message, but it was distasteful, 
and he cut it up, one piece after the other, and 
threw it into the fire, until the whole message was 
destroyed. And God said, "Jeremiah, get your 
stenographer." And he got his stenographer, 
and God gave him another message. Listen ! He 
not only gave him the whole message, but he 
"added thereunto many like words/' God will 
not only give you truth that is distasteful, but 
He will give you truth that will drive you into 
a corner, that will drive you to surrender, or 
where your will becomes so hardened you look 



WORDS THAT BURN 161 

God in the face and defy the very providences of 
God and the Holy Ghost who applies the truth. 
I am not a popular preacher, and / do not want 
to be. Popularity is a nosegay in the buttonhole 
of a corpse. I am here to give you God Al- 
mighty's truth. According to that Word nations 
ignored the messages, and whenever they did. 
ruin and death followed. And every person in 
the sound of my voice, I do not care how loud 
you shout, nor how high you jump, nor what 
church you belong to, when you are not obedient 
to the messages that God sends you through the 
Word, and by the Holy Ghost, you will lose your 
soul eternally, and die in the church, and go to 
hell. That is God's truth. You do not like these 
sermons; you want to be patted on the back; 
you want bouquets. You want somebody with 
one of these sprayers to spray you with perfume, 
and then you want to go home and say, "Wasn't 
that a beautiful sermon?" Over in my room I 
got down on my knees and told God I wanted His 
message. What we want is God's thought for 
this hour. 

Now, listen ! God must be reckoned with. Oh, 
it will ring down through the corridor of your 
being, every truth you ever heard and rejected, 



162 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

throughout the ages of eternty. Do not talk to 
me about growing old. Man never grows old. 
The mountains are old. No mountain today is 
as high as it was years ago. Corrosion is going 
on, they are going down, lowering. Man never 
grows old. He was made to live throughout the 
ages of God, and all down through the eternal 
ages there will ring through the corridor of your 
being the text of tonight — "Prepare to meet thy 
God." And if you fail to do it, it will be an 
eternal hell, midst eternal burnings, midst eternal 
damnation, because you were such a fool you 
trampled the blood of Jesus Christ under your 
feet, and went to hell, knowing you were doing 
it. You cannot sin and get away with it. Oh, 
men have tried to put God out of their lives. 
Listen to a fool. Jesus Christ tells us God said 
he was a fool. What did he do? Put God out. 
"I will pull down my barns. / will build greater. 
/ will bestow my goods in a barn. / will say to 
my soul, 'Soul, eat, drink, be merry. Thou hast 
much goods laid up for many years' " — in a barn. 
Many Liberty bonds, many Victory bonds — so 
many acres of land — so much money in the bank 
—so much stock. But listen! "But God." Oh, 
there will come a time when God will step in. 



WORDS THAT BURN 163 

There will come a time when God will be heard. 
There will come a time when God will show His 
hand. But God said, "Thou fool. This night 
shall thy soul be required of thee." 

Oh, beloved, you must take God into account. 
"Is not this great Babylon that I built? These 
hanging gardens, these walls, a hundred feet 
high! These towers on these mighty walls! This 
river running through the city! Is not this 
great Babylon that I built ?" But God— God 
stepped in, as Doctor Godbey told you the other 
morning. For seven years he went out and 
grazed with the cattle. "But God!" 

Oh, I believe that God will put the sins of 
anyone under the blood. I believe the blood will 
cover them. But listen ! It is an awful thing to 
have a polluted memory. A young girl was one 
time betrayed. Her innocence was gone — a mere 
child, and when the baby was born she left it 
under a hedge in the cold, cold weather, and 
came away and heard the wailing of that baby. 
Oh, the wailing of that baby! And it stayed 
there until it died. Godly women looked after 
her; godly women succored her; godly women 
helped her; godly women pointed her to Jesus, 
and she became a Christian and lived on through 



164 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

years, but every once in a while she would tell 
her bosom friends, "Oh, I can still hear the wail 
of the baby in the hedge !" 

Oh, listen! It will be an awful thing in eter- 
nity, when there are some spirits that come into 
your vision, and come before you, and look 
would-be-not mothers in the face, and say to 
them, "Oh, if it had not been for you I might 
have had a body, I might have lived in that body. 
I might have glorified God. I might have won 
souls. But you deprived me of my body." It 
will be an awful thing to meet those spirits in 
the other world that you deprived of a body by 
murdering them before they were born. Oh, it 
means something to prepare. It means some- 
thing to get right with God. It means the for- 
saking of sin. It means the abandonment of 
and confession of sins. It means getting down on 
your marrow bones and staying there before God 
until God searches you through and through. 
Preparation means forsaking. Preparation 
means restitution. Preparation means restora- 
tion. Preparation means all of that before you 
can believe God for salvation. Brother Slater 
said he read in a book that an evangelist went 
around and each year counted the same folks 



WORDS THAT BURN 165 

some other evangelist counted the year before. 
,You know why? Because of lack of straight 
Gospel preaching. The Gospel is the power of 
God unto salvation today wherever it is preached 
and believed; and the great trouble is, there is 
not faithful dealing with souls down here at the 
altar. It is a good thing to leave a soul to the 
Holy Ghost. He will deal with it, and He will 
deal faithfully. He did with me. I did not have 
anybody around me when I was seeking. The 
first night there were a few, but I went home 
and put the thing through on my knees — morn- 
ing, noon and night, and there was not anybody 
there to talk to me and make it easy for me. The 
Holy Ghost was making it hard for me. The 
Holy Ghost was going to the bottom of things. 
What we need today is to leave people to the 
Holy Ghost. I am not saying the former days 
were better than these. I do not believe it. God 
is the same. The old Bible is the same. The 
Holy Ghost is the same. Man's needs are the 
same, and man needs the truth today just as 
much as ever he did in the past, and men today 
need to go through on God's lines, and meet the 
conditions that God lays down right here in the 
Word. 



166 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

"Prepare to meet thy God." You must meet 
Him, and meet every sin you ever committed, 
down on your knees at some altar of prayer, or 
else meet them up yonder at the judgment seat 
of Christ, Where it will be too late to pray. I 
believe that when I as a sinner came before God 
in prayer, that He brought up before me every 
sin I ever committed, down there on my knees, 
and the devil came and said to me, "Look here, 
you have been such a bad, wicked boy, Jesus 
Christ can save everybody else, but He cannot 
save you." Let me repeat it: You must meet 
your sins on your knees, and confess out before 
God, or else you will meet them at the judgment 
seat of Christ, where it is too late to confess. 

I was preaching last August. A young girl 
came there, and she did not think much of this 
preacher. I was preaching every night and 
pouring on the truth, just as God gave it to me, 
and she sat away back the first night she came — 
was almost in the rear of the Tabernacle. The 
next night she came she was four or five seats 
farther front. The next night she came she was 
farther up yet, and the next night she was nearer 
the front, and then one night, about 10 o'clock, 
that girl came to the altar. I wish you had heard 



WORDS THAT BURN 167 

her pray. She prayed until half past 12 at night, 
and she prayed through, and that campground 
was just one scene of glorious revelry when that 
girl got through. Let me tell you how she 
prayed. "O God! O God! If you will only for- 
give me I will never drink any more wine. I 
will never go to any more skating rinks. I will 
never go to any more dance halls. I will never 
run with any more married men. I will never 
kill any more babies. I will tell my husband all 
about it, O God, if You will only save me !" That 
is the kind of confession that she made there on 
her knees, and about half past 12 at night, God 
saved her. 

You say, "Preacher, why did you preach that 
way?" I will tell you why. Down there in that 
town they had water works, a great big reser- 
voir, and they emptied that reservoir one time in 
order to clean it out, and found fifty babies in 
it, and the preachers in the town told me of it 
more than once. We have got to preach straight. 
It is murder, murder, murder ! Not merely tak- 
ing a knife and driving it home in somebody's 
back, but the blood of unborn innocents on their 
fingers, going into eternity, and bearing evidence 
of their damnable act to the judgment throne of 



i68 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

God. Do you believe God will forgive it? Yes, 
I do; but it has to be confessed. I was preaching 
in that Campmeeting, and I had my meals on the 
ground in the dining hall. I had a beautiful 
room about a block and a half from the camp- 
ground. I preached one night, and God helped 
me. Oh, how God did help me preach, and the 
next day a man came to me, threw his arms 
around my neck, and said, "I went home and 
confessed to my wife last night." He said, "I 
had confessed to her before, but the way I con- 
fessed to her was this: I told her that when I 
got drunk, before I was married, that I did 
things a drunken man did." He said, "That is 
all the confession I made, but after I heard you 
preach last night, I went home and told my wife 
all the sins I committed, and she said, 'Hus- 
band, I forgive you/ " How much better he felt. 
About halfpast 9 the next morning, in a beau- 
tiful automobile, a man with his wife drove up 
in front of where I was stopping. He came to 
the door and said, "Mr. Kulp, I want to see you. 
I heard you preach last night/' He said, "There 
is my wife out there. She wanted to come with 
me." He said, "Wife, come in. Mr. Kulp is 
here." And they came into my room and sat 



WORDS THAT BURN 169 

down, and he said, "Oh, if I had only heard it 
preached before ! If I had only heard it preached 
before!" That night, in preaching, I preached 
this: "Unconfessed sins never go under the 
blood." And that man heard me preach, and 
went home and said as he went home, "I will con- 
fess to my wife." He was a moneyed man, a 
business man. He said he was down in the cellar 
helping to fix some boxes, and his wife came 
down there and he said, "God sent her down here 
that I might make the confession." He con- 
fessed, and said, "Let's go see the preacher." 
And they drove over to see me that morning, 
and he said, "Preacher, I never sinned against 
my wife until after our last child was born; but 
I was in a city, putting up at a hotel, and a 
woman was stopping at the hotel. They were 
going to move there, and her husband was back 
in the town where they were moving from, and 
she was there. I was standing in front of the 
postofnce one day, and she came along and said, 
'Are you going down to the hotel?' I said, 'Yes/ 
and I went down to the hotel and roomed on the 
same floor w r ith her, and she said, 'This is my 
room/ And I said, 'That is mine/ and she came 
into my room, and I sinned against my wife. If 



170 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

somebody had only preached, 'Unconfessed sins 
never go under the blood/ I would never have 
done it." And there stood his wife, and her 
heart breaking, and she was weeping. 

Say, listen! Unconfessed sins never — never — 
never go under the Blood. Here is the text — 
"Prepare to meet thy God." God is the friend of 
every repentant sinner. But every sinner who 
wilfully continues in his sin, runs against the 
bosses of Jehovah's buckler, and that Bible says 
that God is angry with the wicked every day. 
There is no soft solder about that. There is no 
sentimentality about that. I am giving you God 
Almighty's truth, and I do not care how much 
money you have, how respectable you are in the 
society where you move, I do not care what your 
reputation may be, if there is one single sin be- 
tween you and God in all your past that is not 
repented of, and you have not taken God's way, 
and met God's conditions, that sin will sink you 
into the devil's hell, though the preacher may 
preach a beautiful sermon and eulogize you, and 
pass you into the gates, amidst the acclamations 
of angels, but you will be damned because of un- 
repented sins. Do not tell me a man cannot live 
without sin. A man cannot be saved until he 



WORDS THAT BURN 171 

quits sin. A man has to go out of the sinning 
business. 

I was preaching not far from here, and a man 
was at the altar. He said, "Yes, I have got 
through. There is one thing yet I have got to 
confess to. I was hurt, and I claimed the benefit 
of a compensation law, and I have been paid a 
part of it, but I will not take the rest, for I was 
not hurt as bad as I let on." 

You are not dealing with man. You are not deal- 
ing with preachers. You are dealing with the 
Holy Ghost. I should not wonder but you would 
surprise some folks in your community if you 
would go around making things right. They 
would look at you in astonishment. One time I 
stopped in Indianapolis; just had time to run in 
and get my dinner, and the dinner was fifty 
cents, but it did not have cantaloupe on the bill 
of fare for the fifty cents, and I wanted a piece 
of cantaloupe, and said to the waiter, "Bring me 
a piece of cantaloupe." He brought it, and I 
went up and paid my bill and I got into the car. 
I said, "There, I did not pay for that canta- 
loupe !" I said, "The first time I am in Indianap- 
olis, I will pay for that cantaloupe." I was back 
about a year afterward, and I walked into that 



172 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

restaurant and went up to the clerk, and said, 
"Is here where you take the money for dinners 
and suppers?" And he said, "Yes, sir." A po- 
liceman sat right there. I said, "Well, I was 
here about a year ago, and got a fifty-cent din- 
ner and ordered a piece of cantaloupe that did not 
belong to the dinner," and I said, "here is fifteen 
cents; I want to pay for it." He looked at me, 
and the policeman looked at me. I guess he 
thought I was an innocent just escaped. Oh, I 
should not wonder a bit but what the grocer and 
the shoemaker and the tailor, and a few other 
business men in town might be greatly benefited 
and highly astonished, if you would get enough 
religion to go around and straighten up the past. 
That is what preparation means, and I had to 
write some letters, and I had to send some money. 
Oh, beloved, it means something to prepare to 
meet God. If the Holy Ghost does not back that 
up, don't you move; but if the Spirit of God 
applies that truth, you mind the Holy Ghost. 
How are we going to meet God ? Red-handed ? 

One time a British vessel was after a smug- 
gler, and the captain of the smuggling vessel 
said, "There comes a British vessel. We will 
have to throw the cargo overboard." And so 



WORDS THAT BURN 173 

they went down in the hold and were throwing 
it out, and throwing it out, and by and by they 
came up on deck after having thrown every bit 
of it out, and they said, "But it floats!" And 
there was the cargo floating. Say, listen! It 
floats. You have left a trail behind you, and I 
want to tell you, all the money you can give in 
a campmeeting, and all you can unload, never — 
never — never will atone for your sins in the past. 
It will take the blood of Jesus Christ. 

Now wait a moment. In some places restitu- 
tion has gone to seed. You say, "What do you 
mean, preacher ?" I will tell you what I mean. 
I have heard people get up and testify, and they 
said, "I could not get right until I made restitu- 
tion, and I made the restitution, and everything 
was all right." I do not believe it. Restitution 
does not save you, and if you could undo every 
sin you ever committed, if you could restore ev- 
erything you ever wronged anybody of, it would 
not save you. It takes repentance toward God, 
and faith in Jesus Christ. Listen, brother! If 
you cannot stand this kind of truth, what are 
you going to do when you meet the God that gave 
it? Jesus Christ said, "Thy Word is truth." 

Now, again — your church membership. I 



174 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

would rather be a sinner outside of the church, 
than a sinner inside. I think I would have a 
better chance, that there would be a greater 
probability of my getting to God, if I was out- 
side of the church, than in. The devil would say, 
"Now, don't go back on your profession. Now 
don't dishonor your church. Now what will 
your folks think of you?" It is not what folks 
think. It is, what does God think? Here is 
a woman dying. Mrs. Norris, a woman of the 
same church, came into the bed chamber. The 
woman looked up and said, "Oh, Mrs. Norris, 
isn't this awful, to be forty years in the church, 
and to die and be lost!" I used to labor some 
years ago with Doctor Keen. I was wi+h him 
in a campmeeting up at Bay View, Mich. Listen 
to what he said just before he died. He said 
that 75 per cent of the church members that he 
was called upon to pray with before they died, 
he had to pray with them that they might be 
saved. Good Lord help us ! How is it with you 
tonight? May God wake us up here! 

Preparation. When? Now. "Now is the ac- 
cepted time, now is the day of salvation." You 
may be summoned into the Divine Presence any 
moment. I knew the president of a bank — I will 



WORDS THAT BURN 175 

not tell you where it was, but I was in his private 
office one day, and he had been a warm friend 
of mine for years. I had preached the funeral 
sermon of his father, who was a good, old-fash- 
ioned Methodist, and had real Bible salvation. 
This president said to me, "Mir. Kulp, there is 
one thing I hate (he was president of a state 
bank), at any moment the state inspector can 
walk into this bank. He can demand of me to 
furnish all of my books, to furnish all my pa- 
pers. I will have to show him the whole thing, 
let him examine it. He can come whenever he 
pleases, and I have got to pay him ten dollars 
a day, and," he said, "how I do hate having that 
inspector, that bank examiner, come around." 

The Holy Ghost is an Examiner, and while I 
am preaching He is applying the truth, and to- 
morrow is eternity, and in that eternity is the 
great white Judgment Throne, and men are go- 
ing to be judged for the deeds done in the body. 
God knows every heart. "Go call thy husband." 
"Why, I haven't any husband." You told the 
truth then. The man you are living with now 
is not your husband. You have had five. "Who 
said so?" The Man that is going to be the Judge 
out yonder. He knows. He knows all about it. 



176 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

There is no secret history He does not know. 
There is nothing that He does not have on rec- 
ord. During the war the Department of Justice 
sent for me, and I went over there with a friend 
of mine. I was introduced to the gentleman, 
Mr. Smith, and he said to me, "Well, Mr. Kulp, 
you were out preaching for that pro-German 
the other night, wasn't you?" I said, "Pro- 
German? No, sir; that man is not a pro-Ger- 
man." He called for somebody, and they brought 
out a pile of papers. He said, "Here we have it. 
Here is what he said. Here is where he said 
it. Here are the witnesses. We have got the 
record here." And that man did not know a 
single thing about that record — but they had it. 
Listen ! God Almighty has got your record, and 
it is your record you are going to face, and 
preparation to meet God means canceling that 
record on God's conditions. What are they? 
Repent. That means, go out of the sinning busi- 
ness. What are they? Confession. "If we con- 
fess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive 
us." What are they? Forsake. "Let the wick- 
ed forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his 
thoughts : and let him return unto the Lord, and 
He will have mercy upon him: and to our God, 



WORDS THAT BURN 177 

for He will abundantly pardon." Oh, brother, 
God has the record. But listen ! I want to tell 
you something tonight. The law, the ordinances, 
were against us. Jesus Christ took them, and 
He nailed them to the cross, and He made peace 
through His blood. But, brother, you will have 
to meet conditions in order to get the merit of 
that blood. What are you doing? I was preach- 
ing up here at New Richmond, Ohio. After I 
got through at night, I dismissed the congrega- 
tion, and a young woman came up and stood 
before me. She said, "Mr Kulp, I have only got 
one thing more to do." "Well," I said, "what 
is that?" She said, "I lied about somebody. I 
have got to go and confess it." My! If folks 
had to confess all the lies they had told, wouldn't 
it keep them busy? A Sunday School class one 
day had a lesson on Ananias and Sapphira, and 
the teacher said, "Children, why doesn't God 
strike people nowadays when they lie?" A little 
girl held up her hand and said, "Because there 
would not be anybody alive." God has got the 
record, and it is always fresh in the memory of 
God, and in the conscience of the sinner. Tt 
takes the blood of Jesus Christ to purge an evil 
conscience. How is it with you tonight? Are 



1 78 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

you ready to meet God? What is your salvation 
good for if you are not ready to meet God on 
a moment's notice? 

Up where I was pastor so long, there are some 
people who will not come to hear me preach. 
They say they are made so uncomfortable. I 
wish they would stop and think. I wish men 
and women tonight would take a retrospective 
view of their life, while the Holy Ghost is apply- 
ing the truth, and while the text comes in 
thunder tones — "Prepare to meet thy God." Just 
take a backward look, and then remember, be- 
loved, remember that the God who came to 
Adam and said, "Where art thou?" is on your 
track tonight. Remember that man never hid 
from God until he sinned, and sin is just as hate- 
ful in God's sight tonight; but remember, "The 
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." 
Remember, "When I see the blood, I will pass 
over you." Oh, there is hope for you, but you 
will have to meet God's conditions. 

A fellow brought a load of coal to a house, 
went in and said, "Where do you want this 
coal ?" The lady said, "You will have to go down 
and unlock the cellar window." The man went 
down and unlocked the cellar window, and com- 



WORDS THAT BURN 179 

ing back, he saw a fine pair of gloves. Oh, they 
would be good for a driver ! And he took them 
and put them in his pocket. He unloaded the coal 
and went away. Twelve years afterward that 
man yielded himself to God. He hunted up the 
man who owned the gloves and said, "Say, I 
have got something to tell you. For twelve years 
I have never met you but what I have been 
ashamed of myself." The man said, "What is 
the matter ?" He said, "Twelve years ago I took 
a load of coal to your house. I went down in 
your cellar to unlock the cellar window. There 
was a pair of driving gloves there, and I stole 
them, and I want to pay for them." Twelve 
years ! Conscience has a long memory — and God 
has a longer one ; and if our conscience condemns 
us, God will condemn us, for God is greater than 
our conscience. Prepare. When? "Now is the 
accepted time, now is the day of salvation." 

Do you know why a great many people do not 
come here? Because they are unwilling to meet 
the conditions. A young man was standing 
right down about there in my church, and I saw 
the fellow was under conviction. I went to him 
and said, "God is talking to you. You ought to 
be a Christian." He said, "Mr. Kulp, if what 



i8o THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

you preach is true, I will never be a Christian." 
I said, "What is the matter?" He said, "I have 
sinned against some people, and injured them, 
and they do not know that I am the fellow that 
did it." God knows. M. W. Knapp, when dy- 
ing, said, "Wake them up! Wake them up! 
Wake them up !" and the only thing I know that 
will wake them up is the truth, as it is in Jesus 
Christ, preached by godly men and backed by the 
Holy Ghost. Jesus is able to save unto the ut- 
termost all them that come unto God through 
Him, and save them now — when you meet con- 
ditions — and then you will be saved on the merit 
of the blood of Jesus Christ, and not because of 
your good works. 

It is 8:58. How many persons are there here 
tonight ready to meet God at 9 o'clock, in just two 
minutes? You know whether you are or not. 
Let me tell you something. My old mother is 
ninety-six years of age next November. Once 
in a while she will have a flash of her old self, 
and when she does, she will sing some old hymn : 

"Drooping souls, no longer grieve, 

Heaven is sufficient, 
If in Christ you do believe, 

You shall find Him precious. 



WORDS THAT BURN 181 

Jesus now is passing by, 

Calling mourners to Him, 
He has died for you and me, 
Now look up and view Him." 

I can hear her old cracked voice. Then again 
she will say to me, when she has those moments 
— they do come now and then — "I am all ready 
whenever the Master sends for me." Thai never 
leaves her. Somebody referred to something of 
that kind the other day, and I thought of 
mother. Oh, thank God, there are some things 
we know. You can know if you are ready. Bish- 
op Hughes says never to put a test that is not 
Scriptural — and I am not. That is the test tlat 
Jesus Christ puts — -"Be ye also ready, for in such 
an hour as ye think not, the Son of man-Cometh." 
Are you ready? 



I«2 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 



WRATH REVEALED 

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven 
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of 
men who hold the truth in unrighteousness/' 
(Rom. 1:18.) 

The Bible is. the Word of God, not only con- 
tains the Word, but is the Word of God. You 
believe it? Yes? But how many are living as 
though it is? How many are living the Word? 
The criticism of the Chinese as they see men 
from America, supposing that all are Christians, 
is, "You are not as good as your Book." God 
speaks to us in this Word. How much attention 
are you paying to it? If your children disobeyed 
you as persistently as you have disobeyed God, 
what would you do to them ? Your life is a con- 
tinual disregard of the claims of God. We call 
Nero a monster because he murdered his mother ; 
but the sinner is crucifying the Son of God, 
counting His blood a common thing, and putting 
Him to an open shame, and repeating it every 
day, all the time. 



WORDS THAT BURN 183 

This Book tells us of heaven — says that heaven 
is for the righteous. The pure in heart shall see 
God. I go to prepare a place for you, my dis- 
ciples, that where I am there ye (my disciples) 
shall be also. Do you expect to get to heaven? 
Do you really mean it ? Are you sure that you 
are not confused, taking a desire for a hope? 
You know there is a vast difference between a 
desire and a hope. You no doubt desire a million 
dollars, but you have no hope of getting it. Let 
us examine and see upon what your hope is based. 
The Word says, "Blessed are they that do His 
commandments; they shall enter in through the 
gates into the city." The first commandment to 
all is, Repent. John, the forerunner of Jesus, 
preached Repent. They took his head off, and I 
really think that more preachers would have 
their heads taken off if they would preach re- 
pentance. Jesus came and the first thing He 
preached was repentance, and they crucified Him. 
The Apostles on the Day of Pentecost preached, 
"Repent and be ye converted/' And only one of 
them died a natural death. Repentance is not the 
easy thing that some folks think. It means some- 
thing to repent. Let me ask you, Have you repent- 
ed? When did you repent? Do you remember? 



1 84 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

God says in this Word to us. He that covered! his 
sins shall not prosper, but he that forsaketh and 
confesseth shall find mercy. If we confess our 
sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our 
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 
When the Prodigal came to himself he said, "I 
will arise and go unto my father and I will say 
unto him I have sinned" — in other words, I will 
go unto him and confess. How much confessing 
did you do? This is one of the commandments, 
and we cannot evade it. Men do not like to 
confess. They are like Dr. Juniper, an old col- 
ored herb doctor in Baltimore. He was attend- 
ing a revival service, and being under deep con- 
viction, he went to the altar and prayed earnestly. 
The folks at the altar were getting through fine- 
ly, and the old doctor did not know what to make 
of it that he did not get through; so he said, 
"O God, I guess you don't know who I is; I is 
Dr. Juniper." But the Lord did not pay any 
more attention to Dr. Juniper than before. And 
still the others kept praying through. The old 
doctor really wanted God and was now almost 
heart broken, and lifting his hands and voice he 
cried, "O God, I isn't Dr. Juniper; I is nothing 
but a poor old sinner." And that very moment 



WORDS THAT BURN 185 

he got through. Have you confessed your sins 
to Him? I was in a meeting in an Ohio town 
and after the meeting a woman came to me and 
said, "I have done everything but one. I must 
go to a woman I lied about and tell her." She 
seemed to think it was her duty to go and tell 
the woman, and I did not say her nay. The Word 
of God says, "Let the sinner forsake his ways 
and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let 
him return unto the Lord, for he will find mercy." 
You expect to get to heaven? Have you for- 
saken all sin and sinful associations ? How much 
forsaking did you do? Did you leave the card 
table, the dance, the moving picture show, the 
theater, the snuff and tobacco? You see it says, 
"his ways." Was this one of your filthy ways? 
A clean case of religion gives a man a clean 
mouth. It will change the color of his spit. Oh, 
yes, God demands forsaking on our part. Have 
you forsaken the old crowd? I remember of a 
case where a young woman went to a revival 
meeting accompaniel by her escort, and during 
the meeting she arose, left him and went to the 
altar. He was so angry he left her and went 
home. A real gentleman would have waited. 
The next day she received a letter in which she 



186 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

was told, "If you are going with those people, 
you cannot go with me." And that little woman 
sat down and wrote him one of the sweetest little 
letters he ever had received, and it said just one 
thing, "Goodbye!' She left all things, associa- 
tions and associates to go with God. This was 
very different to a case at Sephardsyille, Mich., 
when a young woman came to the altar. There 
were a number of young persons at the altar, and 
they were praying through, too, and she prayed so 
earnestly that I was ready to shout for the vic- 
tory that appeared to be in sight. All at once 
she stopped praying, wiped away her tears and 
rose up and said, "The Lord shows me that my 
friend will be saved." I saw it at once and I said 
to myself, "Tricked by the devil." She was keep- 
ing company with an ungodly man. The Lord 
told her to give him up. The enemy came and 
said to her, "Your friend will be saved; that is 
all right." And she listened to him; the thing 
suggested was in harmony with her own inclina- 
tions, and she was caught with the guile of Sa- 
tan and missed the experience that God wanted 
to give her. If any man will be my disciple let 
him do as did Matthew of old; he arose, left all, 
folks and everything else, and followed Jesus. 



WORDS THAT BURN 187 

It is better to go with God than folks. Abram 
went with God, but Lot went with Abram. Lot 
went to Sodom, and lost his wife and some of 
his children; but Abram walked before God and 
received the promise of all the land. Be ye holy 
is a command. This is the will of God even your 
sanctification. Rejoice evermore, pray without 
ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this 
is the will of God concerning you. If any man 
will do my will he shall know the doctrine. Do 
you have the experience? Have you got a hope 
of heaven? Repented and know you did? Con- 
fessed clear through and know you did? For- 
saken all sin and all sinful associations, all secret 
sins and secret places, come out from among 
them and are separate and clean and you knozv 
it? Then to you comes with power the Word of 
God, "Blessed are they that do His command- 
ments for they shall have a right to the tree of 
life and enter through the gates into the city. 

There is a heaven and there is a hell. Believe 
it? Oh, I do not know so surely about that. 
Where did you get your knowledge of heaven? 
From the Word of God? Yes and nowhere else. 
I know there is a heaven on the authority of 
God's Word, and on the same authority I know 



1 88 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

there is a hell. If thy right arm offend thee, cut 
it off. It is better to enter into life maimed, 
than having two arms to be cast into hell fire 
where the worm dieth not and the fire is not 
quenched. Who said that? Jesus did. In hell 
the rich man lifted up his eyes being in tor- 
ment. Who said so? Jesus did. Hell from 
beneath is moved to meet thee at thy coming. 
God's Word for it. The wicked shall be turned 
into hell with all the nations that forget God. 
Oh, just as surely as you make a map of the 
universe you write down "heaven," so surely 
write down hell, for there is one and it will be 
the eternal home of the sinner who refuses to 
repent and go with God. There is wrath, and 
my text tells us of wrath revealed from heaven; 
the wrath of God against sin and the unrepent- 
ant sinner. And I would say here, the Word tells 
us of wrath to come, not as a threat, but as a 
warning. Because there is wrath. Beware! 

Now to our text. Wrath revealed in the Word. 
Why did God drive out of Eden our first 
parents? Because they did what you are doing 
every day — they sinned against Him. Why did 
God destroy the Antedeluvian world? Because 
they sinned against Him. WJiy were the cities 



WORDS THAT BURN 189 

of the plains destroyed, and left in ruins by the 
fires of heaven that God rained down upon them ? 
Because they sinned. Oh, sin is no joke — no 
dream. Sin is the thing that God hates, whether 
in an angel or a man. If the angels who kept not 
their first estate were cast down to be reserved 
in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the 
great day, how shall we escape if we neglect so 
great salvation. Achan took a wedge of gold 
and a Babylonish garment and was stoned to 
death by Divine command. God hates sin. Uz- 
zah put out his hand to steady the ark, and God 
killed him, for he violated the law God gave. 
The Word of God teaches there is wrath against 
sin, and this Word came from heaven. Holy 
men of old spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost. 

The wrath of God against sin is revealed in 
conscience. Charles the Ninth of France yielded 
to the entreaties of his queen mother and signed 
the paper that meant the death of his Huguenot 
subjects. He afterward sat in the window and 
saw them shot down — men and defenceless 
women and little children, until the streets of 
Paris ran red with the blood of the innocents. 
In a few years he was on his death bed, his very 



i. 



igo THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

pores ran blood, and before his eyes were the 
sights he saw on that awful night when he per- 
mitted his subjects to be murdered, and he cried, 
"O doctor, give me something to take away this 
blood from my eyes. ,, But the doctor could not 
by any medicants reach the conscience of the dy- 
ing king. The wrath of God revealed in con- 
science against the sins of the past. A woman 
was dying in Michigan, and as she laid. on her 
bed she kept crying, "Take away those little fin- 
gers, they are pinching my face — they are pinch- 
ing my face!" What was the matter? The 
wrath of God in the conscience. She had mur- 
dered more children before they were born than 
she ever brought into the world. The brethren 
of Joseph saw him coming across the fields and 
said, "Here comes that dreamer; now we will 
get even with him. ,, And they planned to put 
him in the pit, and they did; but seeing some 
Ishmaelites coming along the road, they sell him 
to them and down into Egypt he is taken while 
they go home with a coat dipped in blood to de- 
ceive their old father. They were adepts at de- 
ception, forgetting "what a tangled webb we 
weave when first we practice to deceive." The 
years roll along and the whirligig of time brings 



WORDS THAT BURN 191 

God's revenges. There is a famine in the land 
of Canaan and corn only in Egypt, and 
these brethren go down there to get some 
corn and get into trouble, for there is 
a man there that knows them, though they know 
him not, and they get together and say one to 
another, "Verily, we are guilty of our brother's 
blood." No one has said a single word about 
their brother. What is the matter ? Simply this, 
the wrath of God revealed in conscience against 
the sin of years ago. Belshazzar trembles at a 
handwriting on the wall — trembles, though he 
cannot understand a single word that is written. 
What is the matter? Just this, conscience con- 
demns him; he knows he is guilty, and that is 
enough to know. "A guilty conscience makes 
cowards of us all." 

The wrath of God is revealed in His provi- 
dences. Nations have proved this in the past. 
The Jew was to give the land a rest every sev- 
enth year, but led on by their greed, like the 
profiteers of America today, they robbed the land 
as these do the citizen who is at their mercy and 
cannot help himself. And they did this for four 
hundred and ninety years, apparently forgetting 
that God can count, and that He is a jealous God. 



192 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

But the time came when He stepped out of the 
shadows and took notice in a practical manner, 
for the Babylonians came into the land, and car- 
ried them off into captivity and there they had to 
endure captivity until the land rested seventy 
years, the number of years in which it had been 
robbed. You cannot cheat God at all. The land 
belongs to Him. He says the earth is mine. And 
when you rob even God's earth you may expect 
Him to visit you in wrath. We might take the 
time and tell you of nations now decadent, deca- 
dent because they violated the laws of God and 
had to pay the price. Rome, Spain, once the 
mightiest empire on earth, Babylon, Greece, all 
sinned against Him, and now are paying the 
price. It is said that no denomination that ever 
missed its opportunity and went to decay and 
death, ever was restored, and it is eminently true 
of nations, when they fall they fall like Lucifer — 
never to rise again. 

The wrath of God is revealed in nature against 
sin. A sin against one's own body is a sin against 
God, for He who wrote the laws on Sinai, who 
gave us the Decalog, also gave us the laws that 
govern our bodies, and to violate the laws of the 
body is to sin against God. He who does it must 



WORDS THAT BURN 193 

pay the price. The hospitals for the insane are 
filled today with young people who have 
indulged in secret vices until the mind has be- 
come deranged, reason dethroned and they are 
shut in as a menace to society and a reproach 
to humanity. There is no escape. God may 
forgive, but nature never does. The young man 
who has the cigarette habit is doomed to shorten 
his life, wreck every nerve, and curse his prog- 
eny. A young fellow one day entered the office 
of a physician and said, "Doctor, I am all in." 
The doctor said, "I see you are. How many 
cigarettes do you smoke in a day?" He an- 
swered, "About forty." The doctor asked him 
to bare his arm, and taking a leech from a bottle 
he put it on the fellow's arm, and in exactly two 
minutes it dropped off dead. "Young man, if 
you think that was an accident, I will put on 
another." And he proceeded to put on another 
and in two minutes the same result. "That is the 
result of your cigarette smoking," said the doc- 
tor. And the youngster did not say I will quit 
at once, but like the slave of habit that he was, 
he merely said, "I will not smoke so many." 
There are more women going to the operating 
tables than there are mien, and one reason is they 



194 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

are lying nightly by the side of husbands who are 
poisoning them gradually by the nicotine in their 
blood. I once made this statement on a camp- 
ground where was a man who was a constant 
user of tobacco. He was talking to his wife 
earnestly as I passed by and she called me say- 
ing, "My husband wants to talk with you." I 
went to them, and to say he was angry is to put 
it mildly. He at once began: "I do not see how 
a man by the use of tobacco can poison his wife." 
I replied, "I have not the authority with me, but 
let me have your name and address, and when I 
return home I will get it and send it to you." I 
went hom^ and one day entered the office of Dr. 
Leslie, and I said, "I am called into question 
because of a statement I made in reference to 
the use of tobacco." He asked me to be seated 
and went to his bookcase and took down a book 
called "Woman the Eternal Sufferer/' and turn- 
ing the leaves over rapidly he called my attention 
to the chapter and page that revealed the facts. 
It was written by an eminent Jewish physician 
on the Pacific Coast I copied it and sent it to 
my wrathy friend, and the next time I went to 
that place he canue to the altar and quit his to- 



WORDS THAT BURN 195 

bacco, and today is preaching and practicing a 
clean Gospel. 

"Do you see that home we just passed, doc- 
tor ?" "Yes, I do, and I know the family." 
"Well, doctor, I think a man with a home like 
that and a proportionate income could be a happy 
man." "Well," said the doctor, "that man is 
poisoning his wife — killing- her by slow degrees. 
He is a tobacco fiend." The medical man knows 
that tobacco is an evil that will shorten the days 
of the m|an who uses it. Nothing good can be 
said of the weed, and nothing good comes of us- 
ing it, and God's curse is upon the use of it and 
upon the user. During the Spanish American 
war, half of the young men who applied for en- 
listment were rejected on account of the "tobacco 
heart." No sentiment here, just hard common 
sense, aided by medical science. Be sure your 
sin will find you out is true of all sin, whether 
it is sin against the body or sin against the law 
as revealed to us in the Word. 

The wrath of God as seen in the past is terri- 
ble. The blasphemers who were slain the night 
the angel of the Lord passed through the Assyri- 
an ranks knew that he but did the Divine will 
on them. They knew it when it was too late. 



196 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

The men who sneered at the Missionaries on the 
island of Martinique knew when too late that 
God was capable of wrath. Only a few days 
1 before they had told these men of God they were 
not wanted on the island, and must get off. They 
took a pig and nailed it to a cross and carried 
it through the streets of the city, and said to 
the MHssionaries, "Here is your Christ" But 
very soon God rose in the might of His power, 
shook the island as with an earthquake; Mount 
Peelee blew its head off and there came out mud 
and steam, hot water and stones, burning lava 
and ashes, and forty thousand people were hur- 
ried into eternity. They did not want God, and 
said so, and God showed them that He was 
through with them until Judgment Day. Out 
in San Francisco the drunken mobs with their 
political processions could parade the streets 
with red fire and blare of bands, cheering and 
hooting, and nothing be said about it; but when 
the Salvation Army, and the little bands of Holi- 
ness people appeared on the streets, they were 
told they were disturbing the peace of the city, 
and must stop, and when they kept right on and 
sang and prayed and testified, they were told 
they must stop or go to jail — and they stopped. 



f 



WORDS THAT BURN 197 

But God knew, and sometimes He uses measures 
that are quite convincing. The city had retired 
to rest for the night, but He never slumbers, and 
He just put out His little finger and shook the 
Pacific Coast, and San Francisco went down in 
ruins. Then some of them at least wanted God, 
and they prayed and wept and cried aloud on 
the streets to God to have mercy. Wrath revealed 
in nature against Sin and Sinners. 

There is only one way to avoid wrath, and that 
is the way that God has appointed. Repent. 
When God was aroused and sent a prophet to 
Nineveh to cry, "Forty days and Nineveh shall 
be destroyed !" the king and the nobles and the 
people all put on sackcloth and ashes, and God 
saw their repentance was real, and He heard 
their cry and spared them. Repent and be ye 
converted, that your sins rmay be blotted out. 
Though they be red like crimson, yet shall they 
be whiter than snow. Whoever shall call upon 
the name of the Lord shall be saved. I believe 
with Dean Alford, "All man's salvation is of 
God, and all of his damnation is of himself." 
God in Christ has done all that He could do to 
prevent the consequences of sin. Each man 
makes his own hell and fixes his own eternal 



198 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

destiny. Man as a free moral agent can do 
as he pleases. To whom ye yield yourselves 
servants to obey, his servants ye are. It is not 
in the power of Omnipotence to save a man 
against his own will. Man can resist all the in- 
fluences of Divine Love, all the strivings of the 
Holy Spirit. Peter once said, "As did your 
fathers so do ye; ye do always resist the Holy 
Ghost." But there comes an end; an end to pro- 
bation, and Sin loved and persisted in will send 
a soul to where it is forever separated from God. 
Then evil character is fixed beyond the power of 
change, and wrath forever is wrath against sin. 
May God keep all who hear these awful truths 
from the wrath to come. 



WORDS THAT BURN 199 



XI 
LYING TO GOD 

"I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my con- 
science also bearing me witness in the Holy 
Ghost." (Romans 9:1.) 

A He is an intentional violation of the truth, 
a false statemient made knowingly and deliber- 
ately for the purposes of deception. It is any- 
thing which misleads, deceives or disappoints, 
anything false, hollow and deceptive. It is to 
profess to have something which we know we 
do not possess. Men lie to men, but in the last 
analysis all lying is unto God. Peter said to An- 
anias, "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie 
to the Holy Ghost . . . thou hast not lied 
unto men, but unto God." In fact all sin is sin 
against God. There are powerless lives all 
around us ; men and women are loud in their pro- 
fession and yet whose lives in the home, in the 
community, in the church, are absolutely devoid 
of any spiritual power, and "there is a reason." 
We talk glibly about consecration, forgetting 



200 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

that consecration means abandonment unto the 
Holy Ghost of the whole life of the individual, 
and all that life means unto the one will of God 
for all time and all eternity. Martin Wells 
Knapp said, "Consecration means taking your 
hands off of that which belongs unto God." And 
when we consider that all we are and all we 
have and all our present and all the future is 
ours only because given us of God, we begin to 
see what it mieans to be abandoned unto Him. 
It means a glad acceptance of all the will of God 
for ourselves unto the farthest possibility. And 
now please remember that consecration and 
power go together. The very moment a soul 
abandons itself unto God, that very moment the 
Holy Ghost comes in as the Sanctifier. It is a 
principle in philosophy that nature abhors a 
vacuum, and so does grace. God is glad to give 
the Holy Ghost unto all them! that obey Him. 
He says so in His Word, and all the theories men 
can invent to cover their lack of experience, can- 
not displace the truth. This leads to the inquiry, 
"Why, then, are there so many powerless lives 
all around us?" Listen to God speaking in the 
Word, "Ye shall receive power, the Holy Ghost 
coming upon you." Power to be a living wit- 



WORDS THAT BURN 201 

ness for God. Not to shout, though that is good 
when He puts the shout in us; not to jump, 
though that is all right when we delight our- 
selves in the Lord, for delighting means in the 
original, "jumping up and down in the Lord"; 
but living for God, in harmony with Him, walk- 
ing with Him, keeping step with Him, in cheer- 
ful obedience to all His will, all the time and 
everywhere. Why, then, are there so many 
powerless lives? Men are lying to God! Charles 
G. Finney was the leading evangelist of the nine- 
teenth century, wonderfully owned of God. He 
was engaged in a meeting at a certain place and 
church, and a Presbyterian Elder came across 
the country to the meeting to see him and get 
advice. This man had been seeking the baptism 
of the Holy Ghost, but thus far had failed to 
receive Him. Mr. Finney was being enter- 
tained in the home of an elder who had received 
the Spirit, and the visiting elder was also a guest 
in the same home. As they sat down at the 
table for dinner the visiting elder was so full of 
the desire, that he could not wait, but immedi- 
ately asked the elder, his host, "How did you 
receive the Holy Ghost ?" And back came the 
answer, "I stopped lying to God." At once the 



202 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

man rose from the table, went to his room and 
came back in five minutes, his face all aglow, 
and said, "I told God I had told Him my last lie, 
on my knees or off." Oh, that all churches, all 
men, all women, all who profess the religion of 
the Lord Jesus Christ would quit lying to God 
All churches ? Yes. Here is a church to be dedi- 
cated to God. Listen to the trustees as they 
stand there before the mjinister, "We present 
unto you this church, to be dedicated to the serv- 
ice and worship of Almighty God." Hear the 
minister: "We dedicate this church to His serv- 
ice for the reading of the Scriptures, the preach- 
ing of the Word of God, the administration of 
the sacraments, and for all other exercises of 
religious worship." Go along the street on which 
that church stands in a few weeks and read the 
Bulletin Board, "A chicken-pie social, Saturday 
night, twenty-five cents. All are welcome." That 
church is a lie before God and the world. It 
was dedicated to the worship of Almighty God, 
and here it is used for revelings and banquetings, 
for guzzling. Revival services held for ten days 
— a kind of a periodical spasm, something relig- 
ious must be done to wipe away the reproach, to 
miake the world overlook the lie. An evangelist 



WORDS THAT BURN 203 

must be sent for; there is not enough spiritual 
life and power in the church to keep a weekly 
prayer meeting on fire for one night; a revival 
must be imported, and when the imported revi- 
val is over the imported evangelist will quite 
likely take away with him the imported revival. 
I have a firm convicton that any church that can- 
not have a revival without importing an evan- 
gelist, the whole outfit ought to go to the altar — 
minister and congregation. In my pastorates I 
used to invite an evangelist to come and help me, 
because I wanted my people to hear other men, 
and I wanted to hear them myself, and God 
blessed in the whole business, and the pastor and 
people were all ready to back the evangelist up 
and did not first have to go to the altar to get 
ready for the revival. Praise the Lord! 

Men are lying to God. Dr. Kieen once said: 
"Seventy-five per cent of the professing Chris- 
tians that I am called upon to pray with I have 
to pray that they be made ready." He was 
speaking of those with whom he prayed on their 
death beds. Listen to this man pray. He is sick, 
very sick, or else he would not have prayed : "O 
Lord, spare me, raise me up from this bed of 
sickness and I will serve You all the days of my 



204 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

life." God spares that man's life, raises him 
up, and he goes right on living the same old life. 
What is that man's life? It is a living lie! A 
lie unto God. An old sea captain was sitting in 
a parlor, telling the friends how he had been 
shipwrecked, was floating on the sea for twenty- 
four hours, holding on to a floating mast, hoping 
some vessel might come that way and rescue him. 
His listeners were spellbound, but one of them 
had a question he wanted to ask, and so he said, 
"Captain, may I ask you a question?" "Certain- 
ly, sir." "Did you not promise the Lord if He 
would spare you that you would serve Him?" 
And quick as a flash came the answer, "None of 
your business, sir!" But the next day the Cap- 
tain came around and said, "I beg your pardon, 
sir; I was very rude yesterday. You touched a 
sore spot. I did promise God when I was float- 
ing out there on the ocean, that I would serve 
Him — and / have not done it" That captain's 
life was a lie — a living lie. Do you remember 
the promise you made the time you were sick? 
Have you kept the promise? Broken vows and 
promises made to God stand in the way of your 
peace and salvation. There are lies to be 
straightened out, and the time will come when 



WORDS THAT BURN 205 

you will remember them and tell God you lied, 
and ask Him to forgive you. I knew a man who 
was standing in his parlor, and in front of him 
was a little white casket, and in it a precious little 
one God had taken to Himself. By the side of 
the doctor stood an old friend, a man of God, 
and the doctor said, "Brother F , I remem- 
ber as I stand by this casket the vows I made 
unto God and did not keep." Oh, he thought of 
them now, and the lies oppressed his very soul. 
Well do so many sing, "Broken vows and disap- 
pointments thickly strewn along the way." Here 
is a meeting in progress and souls are at the 
altar; some are praying very earnestly. Hear 
this man pray, "O Lord, I give myself unto Thee, 
soul and body, for time and eternity. I say yes 
to all thy will. I abandon myself to Thee for- 
ever, in the name of Him who died for me, who 
shed His blood to wash away my sin." I am 
expecting something to happen. I am ready to 
shout over that fellow. But nothing happens — 
no fire falls. What is the matter? He does not 
mean it. It is only lip deep. He did not pray 
from his heart and mean it. In other words, he 
is lying to God. There must be obedience before 
there can be faith. The Holy Ghost comes where 



2o6 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

He is really wanted, and comes suddenly, and 
where there is His presence, there is power and 
fire. 

Hear this man pray, "Lord, I am Thine, 
Thine forever, to be Thine alone." No fire, and 
he goes out and flirts with the world, runs with 
the world's people, looks like the world. There 
is an old adage that comes to me just now, and it 
is this: "You cannot hunt with the hounds and 
run with the hare." I wish all professing folks 
would remember that. It would keep them out 
of lots of bad company. Here is a man and 
woman come to me to be married. I tell them 
to stand, the gentleman on the right of the lady, 
and I ask him, "Wilt thou have this woman to 
be thy wedded wife? Wilt thou love, 
honor, cherish, and forsaking all others keep thee 
only unto her so long as you both do live?" And 
he says, "I will" I then ask the woman, "Wilt 
thou have this man to be thy wedded husband 
so long as you both do live? Wilt thou love, 
honor, cherish, and forsaking all others, keep 
thee only unto him so long as you do both live ?" 
And she answers, "I will." And then I pro- 
nounce them husband and wife in the name of 
God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. 



WORDS THAT BURN 207 

Whom God hath joined together let no man put 
asunder. Now is it so that that man has no 
right to look at another woman, nor to flirt with 
another woman? That woman has no right to 
make eyes at another man, no right to flirt with 
another mian ? You say yes ; and so God in His 
Word says, "Come out from among them and be 
ye separate." A real consecrated life is a sep- 
arated life. Old World, goodbye — and goodbye 
forever. 

No Christian can flirt with the world, wear 
the world's garb, and keep right with God. I 
once heard Caughey, the celebrated Irish evan- 
gelist, say, "You cannot let the devil be your 
tailor, nor your milliner, nor your dressmaker. ,, 
Mjy father and mother were converted in old 
Green Street Methodist Church, in Trenton, N. 
J., under the labors of Rev. Charles Pitman, and 
I have heard them say that at night, after the 
altar services were closed, one could go all along 
the altar and pick up the feathers and flowers 
and jewelry. I was in a meeting in the Holiness 
Church at Huntington, W. Va. A woman came 
to the altar with a hat on her head that had on it a 
big ostrich plume. She came again and again ; no 
one said a word about such things, but one after- 



208 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

noon she put her hand up and pulled off the big 
feather. When the meeting closed, her daughter 
picked the feather up and said, "Mamma, here 
is your feather." The mother said, "I never 
want to see the thing again. " Oh, the Holy 
Ghost is always faithful, and He works along 
the same old lines. 

Here is a church wedding. They have import- 
ed an organist of ability, the church is splendidly 
decorated, the bridesmaids are arrayed in fine 
linen and purple, the little relative is there car- 
rying a lily in which is a ring. The bridal par- 
ty walk up the aisle to the peals of the wedding 
march; the whole thing passes off beautifully, 
without a hitch. The couple go home, when the 
following conversation takes place: "John, did 
you hear how finely the organist played the wed- 
ding march?" And John says, "No." "Well, 
John, you noticed how beautifully the brides- 
maids were dressed, did you not?" And he said, 
"No." "But, John, you must certainly have seen 
how sweetly the little girl looked as she walked 
up the aisle carrying the ring?" And again John 
said, "No." "Well, John, please tell me, what 
did you see, anyhow?" He said, "I did not see 
anybody but you." That is the ideal for the 



WORDS THAT BURN 209 

Christian who is abandoned unto the Holy 
Ghost, who has given himself to Jesus. The con- 
stant song of his heart is, 

Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus, 

I've lost sight of all beside, 

So enchained my spirit's vision, 

Gazing at the Crucified. 
Jesus and only Jesus can fill the vision of the 
sanctified soul. God help us all to get the vision. 
I was in a meeting in Indianapolis; there came 
a man to the altar, a local preacher; alongside 
of him was a preacher, also seeking, dressed like 
a fashion plate. He was seeking the blessing, 
but before he got very far he found out he need- 
ed to get saved, and God did save him, and Sister 
Sadie Camly of that city, had the privilege after- 
ward of seeing him get the blessing as she 
prayed for him. But it is the other fellow I want 
you to see. How he did wriggle and squirm, and 
squirm and wriggle. He would lie on the altar, 
first in one position and then in another ; and he 
would groan, and groan again and again, and 
I finally said to one of the brethren, "What is 
the matter with that fellow, anyhow ?" And they 
said, "He has got a farm. ,, Now a farm is a 
good thing to have, especially in these days of 



210 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

high cost of living; but the trouble was putting 
that farm on the altar. The most tender place 
about some men is their pocket. To pray, "O 
Lord, Thou canst have all that I have," and not 
to put the farm on, is lying to God. I think it 
is the height of meanness to look God in the 
face and say, "One tenth Thine and nine tenths 
miine. ,, I have been in meetings where there was 
a silence as soon as I began to talk about tithing; 
but some people begin to get hilarious because 
they tithed, gave God one tenth, gave Him what 
was His already; and what if one withheld — you 
Were a robber and a thief. I hold that no one 
gives God a single cent who does not give more 
than a tenth. God says, the tithe is Mine. This 
is the Word and under the Dispensation of the 
Holy Ghost all we have is the Lord's, and mak- 
ing a profession of having the Holy Ghost and 
yet withholding from God is lying to God. 

Here is a man who is dead to the world, and 
those are the kind of people I am looking for. 
But how can one be dead to the world and yet 
get over on to the world's territory, enjoy the 
world's people, follow the world's fashions. Un- 
godly men and womien are today setting the 
styles for the world, and professing Christians 



WORDS THAT BURN 211 

are changing their garbs at the behest of the 
devil's fashion makers. Dead to self. That is 
the last thing to die. The first temptation was 
an appeal to self. "Thou shalt be as God." And 
the thing took, and man fell. Few people today 
are saying, "Blot me out that Israel may live," 
like that man back there on the mount with God. 
No wonder God took him up to talk face to face 
with Him. Let me alone, said the Almighty 
One, and I will blot Israel out and make of thee 
a great and mighty nation. That promise would 
have won a Caesar, or a Napoleon, or an Alex- 
ander at once; but this man said, "Blot me out 
and let Israel live." He was dead to self. No 
wonder the Holy Ghost records he "was the 
meekest man on the face of the earth." But here 
is the truth, the eternal fact — Self Must Die — or 
we will die, and that eternally. The Apostle said, 
"I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. 

How did you pray last Watch night, do you 
remember ? Was it anything like this : "O Lord, 
by Thy grace this shall be the best year of my 
life." "I will walk in all the light that God gives 
me." Have you done it? Does the Holy Ghost 
and your own conscience join with you in saying 
yes? Have you fellowship with Him? Are you 



212 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

cleansed from all sin ? You are if you are walk- 
ing in the light. By their fruits you shall know 
them. This applies to us as well as to others. 
If their is no fellowship, there is no cleansing, 
for the two go together ; where there is one there 
is the other. Have you prayed in the closet, 
in the secret place, at the family altar? I have 
seen men who were in the church in good stand- 
ing, but they had no family altar in their homes. 
Have you studied the Word of God? Jesus said 
search the Scriptures. The Holy Ghost said 
give attendance to reading. Have you? Are 
you in partnership with God? Do you put God 
first? The first sentence in the Bible is, "In the 
beginning God." The first table in the Deca- 
logue puts God first: "Thou shalt have no 
other gods before me." The first sentence in 
the Lord's Prayer (commonly so called) is, "Our 
Father who art in heaven." The whole Book 
teaches God wants you in partnership with Him- 
self. Write it out so big the whole world can 
see it, and then display it so three worlds will 
know it — God Almighty, The Triune God and 
John Smith. 

Obedience to God is the keynote to victory. 
Emotion is good, but without obedience it is good 



WORDS THAT BURN 213 

for nothing. Obedience without emotion, with- 
out one single bit of feeling, is pleasing to God. 
To obev is better than sacrifice, and to hearken 
than the fat of ramis. The Holy Ghost is given 
unto them who obey Him. 

In closing, let me call your attention to a vic- 
tor who would, under any circumstance, keep 
his vows made to God. You will find him men- 
tioned in the roll call of heroes of whom the 
world was not worthy, but God found them of 
sufficient worth to put them in the hall of eternal 
fame, where angels and men could read their 
names and deeds, and feel good while doing so. 
I see him kicked out by his own flesh and blood 
because they said, "Jepthah, you are the son of a 
strange woman, and we do not want you 
around. ,, And out he went. He gathers around 
him a band of valiant fellows, who perhaps like 
himself, had been kicked out, and he wins his 
way, acquires a name for himself and his band. 
After a while the Ammonites oppress the chil- 
dren of Israel, and they are unable to deliver 
themselves, and would you believe it, they turn 
to the man they had kicked out, and they fairly 
beg him to come and deliver them, but he re- 
minds them that they kicked him out, hated him 



214 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

and expelled himi from his father's house; but 
still they begged, until at last he said, "If I come 
and the Lord delivers the children of Ammon 
into my hand, shall I be the head of Israel ?" And 
they said, "Yes, you shall be the head." Then 
this man prayed and said, "O God, if thou wilt 
deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, 
if thou wilt give the victory to Israel, I will give 
thee the first thing that cometh forth of mine 
house." And he meant it. He spoke from his' 
heart, and God knew it and gave him the victory. 
He went out and led the hosts of Israel to bat- 
tle and he smote Ammon with a very great 
slaughter. He returns to his home, the folks 
come out to meet him with timbrels and dances, 
they sing praises unto the God of Israel, they 
mention the name of Jepthah, but look, look to- 
ward his home, who is that coming forth from 
his doors? It is his own daughter. Will he be 
true? Will he keep his vows. This man who 
lived more than a thousand years before Cal- 
vary? Hear him, "Alas my daughter, thou hast 
brought me very low and thou art one of them 
that trouble me, for / have opened my mouth 
unto the Lord, and I cannot go back" Have 
you opened your mouth to the Lord and gone 



WORDS THAT BURN 215 

back? I say the truth in Christ and lie not, the 
Holy Ghost and my own conscience being my 
witnesses; God requires truth in the inward 
parts and in the inward parts He will make us 
to know wisdom. Search me, O God and see if 
there be any wicked way in me. 



216 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 



XII 
THE SECOND DEATH 

"This is the Second Death" (Rev. 20:14). 

Death has been denned as the separation of 
soul and body. But is not death more than that ? 
If that were all, why should men fear death? 
Nature is kind to the dying, and has made pro- 
vision for an easy and almost painless exit from 
this life. The blood stagnates, a lethargy creeps 
over the frame, consciousness departs, and all is 
over. I know there have been those who have 
cried in agony, and dreaded death, but it is what 
comes after death the sinner fears. Death im- 
plies the separation frorm loved ones. A young- 
man walked into the office of a railroad magnate 
and said to him, "I want a train for New York. 
I want the right of way for a hundred miles 
ahead. I want switches nailed down for that 
distance, for I must reach New York in the fast- 
est possible time." The manager said, "Young 
man, it will cost you something to get that." "I 
did not ask you what it would cost; I told you 



WORDS THAT BURN 217 

What I wanted." "All right, you shall have it." 
He got it; every switch was nailed down for 
hundreds of miles ahead of the train; the right 
of way was given; he arrived in New York in 
the fastest time ever given to a man; he took 
the auto in waiting, was whisked to a palatial 
home in a few minutes, but there was crepe on 
the door. Death had beat him; a loved one 
whose one desire was to see the young man had 
been hurried away by the hand of death. Death 
and time and tide wait for no man. 

Tom Johnson was Mayor of Cleveland. He 
was eminently a self-made man, had made and 
lost several fortunes. He made the fight for 
three-cent car fares for the people of the city, 
but one day he called in wife and children, and 
said, "I have called you to say the last farewell. 
I am going to the land of shadows; the doctor 
tells me there is no hope, and wife, children, 
goodbye." They came from the room with weep- 
ing eyes and breaking hearts. Death, then, is 
more than the separation of soul and body. It 
is separation from loved ones. To the Christian 
it is only a separation for a little while, and then 
an eternal reunion. When Rev. George W. 
Bacheldor was dying, he called in his wife, who 



218 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

was the daughter of that stalwart man of God, 
Dr. D. W. Bartine. As she sat by his side he 
put his arms around her neck and bade her 
"goodbye for a little while, ,, saying, "I love you 
next to Jesus." The second death is an eternal 
separation from all that is good and true, and 
pure and holy and happy forever. Death is a 
separation from home. I was called to preach 
the funeral sermon of a man in Michigan who 
had been a very successful farmer. He was a 
hard worker; he had cleared every acre of that 
farm on which he lived ; planted every tree, made 
every foot of lawn, sowed every field, and now 
he Was to die. As he laid there he said to some 
of the neighbors who were in the room, "Boys, 
lift me up; take me to the window; let me look 
out on the old farm once more." They carried 
him to the window. He looked long and loving- 
ly at the barns which he had built, at the orchard 
he had planted, at the lawn he had made, and 
then he said, "That will do, carry me back," and 
lying down again he died. Death, then, is more 
than separation from the body — it is a separation 
from home. Miazarin, the Premier of France, 
was nearing the end. He called his servants, 
asked them to take him out to the art gallery 



WORDS THAT BURN 219 

of his mansion, and as supported by their arms, 
he passed along the long gallery, looking at the 
works of artists and sculptors, admiring them 
with a critical eye, he was heard to say, "Must 
I leave you? Can I not take you with me?" 
Yes, he and all the rest of us must leave behind 
all the associations that we have loved. A lady 
was riding along a country road with her driver 
when they came to an old church. The shutters 
hung on one hinge, the cobwebs were over doors 
and windows, the weeds had grown up in the 
path, and yet she said to her driver, "I want to 
go in that old church for a little while." And 
getting out she went in and stayed for more than 
half an hour. The driver grew impatient. 
"What does that woman want in that old church, 
with all its dust and decay?" and he made up 
his mlind he would ask her when she came out. 
After she was reseated in the carriage, he ven- 
turned to ask, "Madame, will you please tell me 
what it was that kept you so long in that dusty 
old church ? w "Certainly I will. I am visiting 
back in this neighborhood where I was reared, 
after an absence of forty years. I never ex- 
pect to return. I was converted more than 
forty years ago in that old church, and I wanted 



220 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

to go in and get down at the altar where I first 
met Jesus. I forgot you — forgot the passage of 
time while I was there. I know you will forgive 
me for keeping you waiting." That old altar 
was dear to her heart and she knew she was 
leaving it for the last time. 

There is a spot to me more dear 
Than native vale or mountain, 

A spot for which affection's tear 
Flows grateful from its fountain. 

'Tis not where kindred souls are found, 
Though that is almost heaven; 

But where I first my Savior found, 
And knew my sins forgiven. 
Death is more than separation of soul from the 
body; it is separation from loved associations. 

But my text refers to the Second Death. Eter- 
nal Death. Death is a monster, an enemy; it is 
pitiless, cruel; it takes the young, the ambitious, 
the hopeful. It separates the husband and wife, 
the mother from the child. I have no liking for 
that hymln that once was in the Methodist 
Hymnal, "Ah, lovely appearance of death, thy 
sight upon earth is so fair." God in His Word 
says Death is an enemy; but this text means 
eternal death, unending, never ceasing, dying 
always and yet never dead. There are three 



WORDS THAT BURN 221 

kinds of Death. First, there is physical death, 
the separation of the soul from the body; then 
there is spiritual death, the separation of the soul 
from God ; and there is eternal death, the separa- 
tion of the reunited soul and body from God for- 
ever. Have you never been in the room where 
they were a long time dying? "How is he to- 
day ?" "Oh, he is nearing the end. The doctor 
says he will pass out before sundown." Sun- 
down comies and friends ask, "How is he today?" 
And again comes the answer, "He is almost 
gone — cannot live through the night." But the 
night has gone and again the friends come and 
ask, "How is he today?" And again the; answer, 
"He is nearly gone — cannot last till noon." But 
at last someone inquires and is told, "He is 
dead." But after ten millions of years have passed 
away, there will never come a time when it can 
be said of an immiortal soul, "It is dead." Death 
flees from them; they want to die in hell and 
cannot; always dying and yet never dead. I do 
like that word eternal — when it is yoked up with 
some words that belong to the vocabulary of the 
skies, or the Christian. Eternal peace. Eternal 
joy. Eternal Heaven! But, oh, the horrors 
when it is yoked up with Eternal Death! Oh, 



222 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

think what it means for that husband who is un- 
saved, who is going straight to a devil's hell, 
while his sanctified wife is going straight to a 
glorious heaven ! It means, "Wife, goodbye 
forever/' Eternal Separation! 

Let us now consider what the Second Death 
really means. It is separation from God forever. 
From God, the Source of life and power and 
love. The soul was made to enjoy God forever; 
made to walk and talk with Him ; made for com- 
munion with Him. I have thought that God 
really enjoyed walking and talking with that 
first man with whom He would mieet and talk 
in the cool of the garden in the morning. I have 
thought God missed the morning walks with 
that good, pure man when he fell. I think that 
God thought so much of Enoch, that other man 
who walked with Hint, that He took him up to 
Himself to make the pleasure an eternal one. 
But think of it! Man made to walk and talk 
with God, separated from Him forever! One of 
the blessings of the pure in heart is that they 
shall see God; but the sinner in hell shall never 
see God, never talk with God, never have a 
prayer answered — it is an eternal separation 
from Him. 



WORDS THAT BURN 223 

It is separation from heaven, angels, friends, 
saints, forever. Here we have churches, the 
bells peal forth an invitation every week to all 
to come to the house of God — but there are no 
church bells calling in hell. I rode on a train 
one time with a man who knew me well, and he 
said, "I would not live in a town where there were 
no churches and no schools. I want them for my 
children. I am not a church member, but I re- 
spect the churches for the good work they are 
doing." Separation from Bibles and Sabbath 
Schools, and good people forever. Never to hear 
another prayer in the Spirit, or Spirit inspired, 
for the Holy Ghost never inspires anyone to pray 
when it is useless, and it is useless to pray in hell ; 
not even a drop of water in hell, though men cry 
for water, water, water, to cool their parched 
tongues. 

The Second Death is companionship with dev- 
ils and demons and Satan forever. With the 
lost in hell forever. Think of it ! Made for God 
and heaven, made to glorify God and enjoy Him 
forever, and yet shut up in hell to be the com- 
panion of the damned of all ages. All the whore- 
mongers, all the adulterers, all the liars, all the 
drunkards, all the saloonkeepers, all the vile and 



224 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

vicious, all that loveth and maketh a lie, all the 
unrepentant of all ages, with Neros, the Borgias, 
the tyrants, the persecutors, the crucifiers of the 
Son of God, the Judases who betrayed Him, and 
this forever! After earth, with its Gospel priv- 
ileges, with its blessed sunlight, with its gracious 
providences, with its preached Gospel, the woo- 
ings of the Holy Spirit, then to be lost in hell 
forever! This is the Second Death. 

It is bitter memories forever. Just to thirk. 
Once appointed unto salvation. Once an heir to 
a robe and a crown. For I fully believe that 
every child that comes into this world is a saved 
child. As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all 
be made alive. There are no heathen babies. 
They are all Christian, born under the atone- 
ment of Jesus Christ, and no matter where the 
child dies — in Africa's jungles or the arid plains 
of India — it goes straight to the presence of God 
as fast as the white-winged angels can carry it. 
No matter what the color of its skin, it is a saved 
child. But to be lost, to reject the light that 
comes through the atonement of Jesus' blood, to 
have to think and think forever, "I might have 
been saved!" God gave His Son to die for me, 
gave me the Word, unto me was the Word of 



WORDS THAT BURN 225 

salvation sent; His providences were around me, 
and now they are all gone forever, and I am 
damned." 

It is tormenting remorse forever; it is agon- 
izing despair, forever ; it is weeping and wailing 
and gnashing of teeth, forever; it is outer dark- 
ness forever. Darkness so far away from the 
throne of God that the light never reaches it. 
I saw a picture representing Napoleon at St. 
Helena. He stands down by the seashore; his 
arms are folded; he is looking away across the 
waters towards La Belle France. I imagine he 
is thinking, "Over yonder I was the loved Em- 
peror of a devoted people; I was on a throne sup- 
ported by the love of France. An army moved at 
the command of my Generals. But I, led on by 
my cursed ambition, was not satisfied. I aimed 
at a dominion that meant Europe at my feet. I 
trampled on the bones and blood of my loyal 
friends to reach the goal — and here I am, to die 
with my boots on, to live only as a memory in 
the days to come." So with the lost in hell. To 
look out as far as mind can carry them to think, 
"Once I lived on yonder earth, where I was a 
free moral agent. I might have been a king and 
priest unto God. I might have been a co-worker 
with the Son of God, with high heaven; but I 



226 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

loved sin, I loved the pleasures of the world, I 
loved to gratify the flesh. I said No to God, and 
here I am banished forever from God and heav- 
en, and hope. Death would be a relief, but death 
never comes here; a coffin would be a welcome 
sight, but coffins are useless in hell. I am lost 
forever. 

It is to be wicked, and constantly growing 
more wicked forever. Want Scripture for that? 
You shall have it. "Evil men and seducers wax 
worse and worse." It is to be without any hope 
or power of repentance forever. Here is a man 
who sold his birthright and he found no place 
of repentance forever, though he sought it care- 
fully and with tears. Every sinner has sold his 
birthright. He was appointed to be saved and 
would not. Jesus said, "Ye will not come unto 
me that ye might have life/' "Let the wicked 
forsake his way and the unrighteous man his 
thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, for 
He will have miercy, and unto our God, for He 
will abundantly pardon." That LET implies he 
may. He can, IF he will. Every sinner is the 
author of his damnation. He reaps what he 
sows. He may cry, as I have heard them cry, 
"O God, give me one more chance ! Give me one 



WORDS THAT BURN 227 

more altar call. Let me hear one more sermon !" 
But it is too late when the line is crossed. 

The Second Death is the aggravation of all 
the woes, of all the sorrows, all the pains, all 
the horrors, all the diseases, all the curse that 
sin ever produced in the world, shut up in one 
place, with one class of people forever — the peo- 
ple who rejected Jesus Christ while on earth and 
deliberately chose sin, for sin when it is finished 
bringeth forth Death, and my text declares it is 
eternal death. I went one time to an insane 
asylum in the state of Michigan. I went with a 
man, then a preacher, who once had been a clerk 
in the institution. We went on the first floor, 
where the folks were so natural you would not 
know they were insane. Then we went on the 
second floor, where they were surely insane, and 
you soon found it out, but they were perfectly 
harmless. My friend then asked the doctor, who 
was our escort, to take us on the third 
floor where the incurables were, so we 
went up on the third floor. A door was 
unlocked, and we were locked into the "Dis- 
turbed Ward" with the doctor and the incurably 
insane. They came around us, hair long and 
unkempt, finger nails unkept, cheek bones high, 
eyes sunken in. They reached out their hands, 



228 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

touched us as though we were visitants from 
some (to therm) unknown world. I was glad to 
get out of there, and I have never wanted to go 
back since. But hell is the disturbed ward of 
the universe, for to my mind the most insane 
thing a man can do is to reject the only salvation 
that can deliver from sin. When a soul rejects 
Jesus, he is an incurable, for there is no other 
name under heaven whereby we can be saved save 
the name of Jesus. There is no rest nor peace in 
hell. In the disturbed ward the constant cry is, "I 
want to go home. I want to go home. ,, So in 
hell the one cry is for Home, for hell has nothing 
homelike about it. Love reigns and rules in a 
home; that is what will make heaven so homey. 
But hate reigns in hell. They hate one another, 
hate God, hate Jesus, hate the Holy Spirit, hate 
the preachers who withheld the whole truth, hate 
the professing Christians who failed to warn them 
of the hell that awaited them as the consequence 
of sin, for as sure as God lives hell is the sequence 
of a life of sin! 

The Second Death is to be lost in hell forever. 
So lost there is no hope. Lost to God, lost to 
hope, lost to love, lost to peace, lost to friend- 
ships, and lost forever! No Savior, no Holy 
Spirit , no promises, no mercy, no mourners' 



WORDS THAT BURN 229 

benches, no time. Can you imagine what earth 
would be without these? Make it as bad as you 
can, and then it is what hell is forever, And 
now, let me give you a description of a lost soul 
from a preacher of the South, a master of lan- 
guage, a man who communed with God, and 
when he passed out of this life he was on his 
knees in prayer. He lived in an afflicted body, 
but it was, nevertheless, a temple of the Holy 
Ghost, and' this man's mind and soul were filled 
with the quickening touch and power of the 
Divine within. Hear his description of a lost 
soul: "Saints commune with saints, and angels 
with angels, and they all commune with God; 
but this soul, sympathetic and social in the very 
construction of its being, its state changed and 
not its constitutional nature, is eternally isolated 
from everything like itself, and plunged into an 
ocean of darkness interminable to its flagging 
wing, where no sight nor sound will ever greet 
its aching sense, and d©omed to wander on in 
the pathless void, while cycles roll and ages go 
grinding on. See it careering in its bewildered 
flight. It has crossed its track and recrossed it 
a thousand times. It is lost, lost beyond the 
power of finding. It knows it. It feels, but still 
it flies, now advancing, now regressing. It turns 



2 3 o THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

again and lo! a blush of dusky light, a stupend- 
ous arch of massive bend, greets its vision. It 
fain would scale the loftiest turret. It soars, it 
hovers, but, oh, horror of horrors ! temples, gates 
and towers melt away into darker gloom, and 
it is left in awful loneliness, hanging in agony, 
but a speck of quivering terror in untenanted 
and unilluminated space. Shall it ascend, de- 
scend, or move off on a level ? There are no ups 
nor downs or recumbent planes where there is 
nothing. If ups and downs and planes there are, 
it may soar up-up-up forever, or dip down-down- 
down forever, or rush on-on-on forever. It is 
still — and through all eternity — A Lost Soul! 

See it — yonder, yonder, yonder ! It goes that 
way — Lost! Lost! Lost! It comes this way, and 
shrieking Lost — Lost — Lost! till our hearts 
stand still with horror. Scream on and fly on, 
cursed and ruined spirit; no battlemented walls 
of jasper will ever meet thy gaze, or furnish a 
resting place for thy weary pinions. Fly on, lost 
soul, forever; no angel of mercy will ever cross 
thy solitary way or overtake thee in thy wander- 
ings. Lost spirits blackened with the curse of thy 
God, fly on and repeat in thy despairing cry the 
chorus of thine own horrible death march. Lost 
— lost, where no echos will ever mock thy 



WORDS THAT BURN 231 

misery. Immortal soul, lost in boundless, 
bottomless, infinite darkness; fly on, thou shalt 
never find company till the ghost of eternity will 
greet you over the grave of God, and thou shalt 
never find rest till thou art able to fold thy wings 
on the gravestone of thy MJaker. And the Judge 
will say to the angels : Bind Him hand and foot 
and take him away and cast him into outer dark- 
ness. There shall he weeping and gnashing of 
teeth (Matt. 22:13)/ " 



232 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 



XIII 
DWELL DEEP 

"Dwell deep — without care — alone" (Jer. 49: 

30-30. 

Jesus knew what we would have to do if we 
were to dwell deep, and so he told us in a parable 
of a man who was going to build a house and 
he digged down deep. He got all the rubbish, 
and sand and clay out of the way. He also told 
us that storms were coming and the building 
we erected would be tested, and it was necessary 
that we should build on the Rock. All the time 
we are living we are building — for all are build- 
ers — and all may see there is a necessity for deep 
Egging- The Christian life is built on Christ. 
He is the Foundation — other foundation can no 
man lay. The poet has well said, 

"On Christ the solid Rock I stand, 
All other ground is sinking sand! 1 

It means much to go with God. We will find 
the crowd, the multitude going the other way. 



WORDS THAT BURN 233 

"Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, 
and many there be that go in thereat/' It took 
a hundred years to make a Stradivarius, but 
when it was made it was worth twenty-five hun- 
dred dollars. It took God and Stradivarius to 
make one. First, the tree to grow, to grow where 
the winds and storms would beat on it, where 
the lightnings and thunders would play around 
it. These would toughen its fiber, would get it 
ready for good work some day in the hands of an 
artist. Then, after all the years, the ax would 
be applied and it would be cut down, and then 
placed away till all the moisture was out, and 
then Stradivarius, with knife and plane. So it 
is with the Christian life. It means all hell to 
oppose, the world to hate, the carnal mind to 
criticize and scoff, to be at times misunderstood, 
and it is necessary to build, and more necessary 
to dig down deep. Oh, there are so many super- 
ficial, shallow professors these days — so many 
giglers. I went one day into a large furniture 
house, and the salesman, one of the firm, showed 
me a piece of furniture that he said was cherry. 
A nice piece of furniture, and he would sell it 
to me at a very reasonable figure, considering 
it was cherry. I bought it, took it home, showed 



234 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

it to wife, and lo and behold, it was cherry — on 
the outside. It was a very nice job of veneering; 
looked like cherry, but it was a very thin piece 
of cherry glued and pressed tight to a very light 
wood. There is so mjuch veneering in these 
days; inot worth [much when it comes to the 
testing. Men do not want — much less seek — for 
God's way. They are like an old farmer who 
had plenty of money and brought his son to Mr. 
Garfield to get an education. Mr. Garfield was 
the president of the college, and he showed the 
farmer a catalogue, and what would be required 
of the young man; and he told him, further, that 
it would take four years or more to finish the 
course contemplated. The old man said, "I do 
not want him here four years. I can pay for his 
education." Mr. Garfield saw the point at once 
and replied, "It takes a hundred years to grow 
an oak; you can have a squash in a few months. 
What do you want your boy to be — an oak or 
a squash?" It was ships of oak as well as hearts 
of oak that made Britain the mistress of the 
seas for so many years. There are storms com- 
ing, dig down deep. You are building for the 
skies. When you contemplate building high you 
must go down deep. I was in Philadelphia one 



WORDS THAT BURN 235 

day and stopped to look at a foundation they 
were preparing. It was way down deep, far be- 
low the surface. It cost something to put it in, 
but they counted the cost and said, "It will pay 
to go down." When they built the St. Louis 
bridge across the Mississippi River, the engineer 
who drew the plan said to the contractors, "You 
must go down till you strike the rock." And the 
contractors said to the foreman, "You must go 
down till you strike the rock." And the foreman 
said to the men, "You must dig down deep till 
you strike the rock." And they began, they went 
down day after day, and one day the man said, 
" We have the rock." They sent a piece of the 
rock up to the engineers, who after a look said, 
"No, that is only sandstone; go down till you get 
the rock." They dug a few days more and said, 
"Now we have the rock, and again they sent up 
a piece; but the engineers said, "No, that is not 
rock yet; that is only a little harder sandstone." 
And on they went digging down deeper. But 
one day they heard a great shout coming up from 
the men. This time they did not send up a piece 
to be examined. They said, "We have the 
rock." The engineers shouted back, "How do 
you know?" Back came more shouting, "We 
struck fire!" Sure enough, you will know when 



236 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

you have struck the rock you will get fire at the 
same time. Never stop digging till you get fire. 
It is promised, "There is one among you . . . 
He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and 
Href' Where He is there is fire — and you will 
know it, and other folks will know it, too. Have 
you been down so deep that you have struck the 
fire. We can never dwell deep, unless we first 
dig deep. 

Dwell Deep. A man who had one time gone 
down until he struck the Rock and consequently 
was dwelling deep, said, and I think I can hear 
the shout of victory in the tones, "For me to 
live is Christ. The life I now live, I live by the 
faith of the Son of God who loves me and gave 
himself for me." When we dwell deep we dwell 
in Him, not in the church alone, not in folks, 
but in Him. We can and do sing, "He is mine 
and I am His." We live in the Spirit and the 
Spirit in us. That means we are led by the 
Spirit. We walk in the Spirit and do not fulfill 
the lusts of the flesh. We then move in Christ. 
All our ambitions, all our desires are in His will. 
All our activities are in harmony with his plan 
for us. All our inspirations are from Him. If 
we want to go to Bythinia, and He says, "No," 
we say no, too. If we are looking toward Asia 



WORDS THAT BURN 237 

and He says, "No," we are as cheerfully obedi- 
ent as if He had said yes. We not only move 
in Him, we move for Him. The love of Christ 
constraineth us. If He says slums, we say slums 
with all our might. I have never yet been able 
to understand why folks should weep and moan 
because God told them to go to the slums. If 
that is His will, better be in the slums working 
for Him than in Heaven. If He says Africa, 
say Amen. I once heard a young woman who 
had for years had the call of God upon her for 
Africa, make this remark: "Why doesn't God 
call some girl whose mother does not need her 
at home." Let us stop talking about the sweet 
will of God while at the same time we are fight- 
ing His place for us, anywhere. Carey was in 
India because God wanted Him there. Taylor 
was in China because the King pointed there. 
Melville was called to Africa and the Missionary 
Board said we have not the money to send you, 
and he replied, "I must go to Africa if I go as a 
hand before the mast." That is the spirit that 
makes the angels rejoice and sets all the bells of 
heaven ringing. 

When a soul dwells in Him, all the ambitions 
are in His will. As Wesley sang, so it is the 
language of the soul: 



2i,& THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Take my soul and body's powers, 

Take my memory, mind and will; 
All my goods and all my hours, 

All I know or think or feel, 
All I speak and all I do, 

Take my heart, but make it new. 
How blest are they who still abide, 
Close sheltered in Thy bleeding side; 
Who thence their strength and life derive, 
And by Thee move, and in Thee live. 
Dwell without care. Down here, in a world 
that is full of care? Yes, right here, and it is 
a lesson it will do us good to learn. The prom- 
ise made to those who will seek first the Kingdom 
of God and His righteousness is, "And all these 
things shall be added unto you." Food, raiment, 
and the things the Gentiles seek after. We may 
prove we are Israel indeed. We can carry the 
goods with us so people will know we are one 
hundred per cent Israel. There is a law now 
that miakes the manufacturer write on the label 
the contents of the can, and that it is all it pro- 
fesses to be; and if the can does not contain 
goods according to the label, then the makers 
may be prosecuted. In other words, tbe law says 
live up to the label. It can be done, it may be 
done, it should be done, and it must be done, if 



WORDS THAT BURN 239 

we ever see the inside of the pearly gates. Patti, 
that wonderful soprano, once went to a city 
where she was almost a complete stranger. She 
called at the postoffice to get her mail, and there 
were a great many letters for one Adelina Patti, 
but she must be identified, and there was no one 
to do it. Again she applied, but the clerk said, 
"I am sorry, but you must prove to me that you 
are Patti." A happy thought struck her, and 
at once she began to sing a simple little song. 
The people stood with open-eyed wonder, the 
clerks came to the windows, all work ceased, and 
an old clerk cried out, "That is Adelina Patti." 
Of course she got her mail — she had proved her- 
self. We must, the world demands it. Jesus 
said, "Ye are my witnesses." Live without care. 
Madame Guyon was shut up in a prison, but she 
was free from care and sang in her cage like a 
bird: 

"My Lord, how full of sweet content 
I pass my years of banishment! 
Where'er I dwell, I dwell with Thee, 
In heaven, in earth, or on the sea. 
To me remains nor place, nor time; 
My country is in every clime; 
I can be calm, and free from care 
On any shore, since God is there." f & 



2 4 o THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

Hear Him! from the Word. Casting all your 
Care on Him for He careth for you. My God 
shall supply all your needs according to the 
riches of His grace in glory by Christ Jesus. No 
good thing will He withhold from him that 
walketh uprightly. If we care for God, we will 
care for His cause, and He will care for us. 
Queen Elizabeth once appointed one of her no- 
bles, a man of ability, to a foreign ambassador- 
ship, and he, thinking of his own estates at home, 
said to the Queen, "Who will look after my in- 
terests while I am gone?" and she at once re- 
plied, "You look after my affairs abroad and I 
will care for you and yours. " He trusted her 
and went. Be careful to be careless — that is, 
without care. I know now you are thinking 
Gentile thoughts; but it is true and some have 
proved it to be true. There was a man in the 
city of Pittsburg, who was most blessedly saved 
while working for a railroad company, and he 
at once went to the superintendent and said, "I 
cannot work any more on Sunday, so I cannot 
go out tomorrow. " The superintendent asked, 
"Why can't you work?" and he said, "I have got 
religion and I cannot work on the Lord's Day 
and keep a clear conscience." "Well," was the 
response, "you have more religion than is good 



WORDS THAT BURN 241 

for you. Go to the office and get your time. We 
don't want men who are too good to work on 
Sunday." He was discharged and went home. 
His wife met him at the door and he told her, 
"Wife, I am fired." "What for?" she asked. 
"Because I will not work on Sunday." She said, 
"You are a fool. As good men as you work on 
Sunday and belong to church, too." But he went 
on his way and would not work. The street cor- 
ners were filled with mien who were out of work. 
He tried to get a job, but failed. He used up 
all the money he had in the bank, then used up 
all the credit he had at the store, the merchant 
saying, "I know you are honest. I have trusted 
you until the bill is more than I can afford to 
carry. I am carrying so many others." And he 
went home to hear his wife's taunts again. Then 
he went upstairs and opened his Bible and in 
prayer he said to God, "Here is your word, Lord, 
seek ye first the kingdom of God and His right- 
eousness, and behold all these things shall be 
added unto you. Now, Lord, I am out of work 
because I minded Thee. Please prove Thy Word 
to me and get me work." And do you know that 
God did it? In a day or two a knock was heard 
at the door, and the call boy said, "The super- 
intendent wants to see you." So down to the 



242 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

office he went and the superintendent said, 
"Have you got a job yet?" "No, sir; I have 
looked everywhere, but I am still out of work." 
"Will you work on Sunday?" was the next query, 
and as quick as the light travels came the an- 
swer from the heart of the young man, "No, sir ; 
I will not work on Sunday for the railroad or 
anyone else." The superintendent laughed and 
said, "Well, I have a job for you. I want you 
to be conductor on a local passenger. It has no 
Sunday run, and your wages will be twenty dol- 
lars a month more than you had in your old 
place." We do not have to care. We have all the 
angels in heaven to minister unto us; we have 
God looking out for us, and He holds jobs in the 
hollow of His hand for those who trust Him. 
He knows all about the future — you do not. 
Trust Him and live your trust. He knew that 
the day would come when there would be a fam- 
ine in the land of Canaan ; he knew that some of 
the heirs of the promise would be in that land, 
so He sent a man down there twenty years ahead 
of the famine to miake provision for the heirs. 
Not only that for seven long years He made the 
soil in the land of Egypt to bring forth by hands- 
ful, and then He had it stored away in granaries 
so it would keep good for the heirs, and then 



WORDS THAT BURN 243 

He made it so the heirs had to get down to the 
corn, and He gave them Goshen, the richest 
province in all the kingdom, where they could 
raise sheep and eat corn and live without care. 

Have faith in God! The starry dome, 

The verdant earth, each flowery plain, 
The babbling brook — and all combined 

A Father s love and power proclaim. 
And not a sparrow to the ground 

Can fall without His wise decree — 
In Him shall light and life be found — 

Have faith in God— He cares for thee! 

"As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, 
so the Lord is round about them that put their 
trust in Him." 

Dwell Alone. 'Get alone with Him. This is 
the one thing needed. I have had good times in 
the public worship, good times in the social serv- 
ices, the prayer and testimony meetings. God 
has blessed me so in preaching that I have actu- 
ally thought if He blessed me any more I would 
not be able to endure it in the flesh; but the 
sweetest times in all my Christian experience 
have been when I was alone with Him in secret. 
When thou prayest enter into thy closet, and 
when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father 



244 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

which seeth in secret, and He shall reward thee 
openly. But to lie still in His presence, to let 
Him talk to you, to just know that it is God who 
is dealing with you in love, and you are alone 
with Himi. You can tell Him things you would 
not tell anyone else, and He will tell you things 
He would not tell anyone else about you. A 
friend is one who knows all about you and still 
Joves you, and the only one that I know of to 
whom that will apply is God. He's a Friend 
above all others. Oh, how He loves! His is 
love beyond a brother's. Oh, how He loves! 
Earthly friends may fail and leave you. This 
day kind — tomorrow grieve you ; but this Friend 
will ne'er deceive you. Oh, how He loves ! Take 
time to be alone with Him. I read some time ago 
if you have thirty minutes for the closet, take 
ten minutes to read the Word, ten minutes more 
to pray, and then Ten Minutes to be still, and let 
Him talk to you. This will be the sweetest part 
of the thirty minutes. Jesus often went up to 
the mountain tops to be alone with the Father. 
He went to the garden to talk with the Father. 
He went a stone's throw farther to be alone with 
Him, and pour out His heart in cries and tears. 
He left us an example, and we should follow in 
His footsteps. We may dwell alone with Him. 



WORDS THAT BURN 245 

"When storms of life around me beating, 

And rough the path that I have trod, 
Within my closet door retreating, 

I love to be alone with God. 
Alone with God, the world forbidden — 

Alone with God, O blest retreat — 
Alone with God and in Him hidden, 

To find with Him communion sweet" 



246 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 



XIV 
HELL A PLACE AND A STATE 

"In hell he lifted up his eyes." (Luke 16:23.) 

One time I was asked to go to see a man who 
was dying — an old man about eighty years of 
age. He did not want to see me, and I went 
there with the understanding that he did not 
want to see a preacher. I talked to him about 
preparation for the future, and he made this re- 
mark to me, "I had nothing to do with my com- 
ing here, and I have nothing to do with my go- 
ing away, and as to whether there is any here- 
after, I do not know." He said, "Nobody ever 
camle back" — but there was where he was wrong. 
Somebody has come back. They were burying 
a man in the land where the old prophet Elisha 
was buried. They were carrying his corpse out 
when a number of raiders made their appear- 
ance, and these people were frightened and in- 
stead of putting the body in the grave allotted 
to it, they put it down in the grave where it 
touched Elisha's bones, and immediately the 



WORDS THAT BURN 247 

corpse was brought to life. He came back, but 
we have no record that he told us anything* about 
where he had been. I do not believe that a soul 
ever loses consciousness. I think it steps out of 
this life into the life to comle; this body fails, but 
the life v that has come to the soul never fails. 
Lazarus was four days in the other world. Jesus 
Christ stood in front of his sepulcher and called 
him forth, and he came, and he sat at the table 
with Jesus and ate with Him, and the people 
came to see the man who had been raised from 
the dead; but we have not a record, of a single 
word that he ever said * % hat. the world beyond. 
Dorcas died; they .^ni for the Apostle and he 
came, and the women stood around showing the 
garments that she had made and were weeping, 
and the Apostle called her back to life; but not 
a single word is given — not a single utterance 
about the life beyond. Paul preached so long one 
night that a fellow who was sitting in the win- 
dow went to sleep and fell out of the window, and 
they picked him up dead, and God through Paul 
restored him to life, but the man never told a 
word about the land to which he had been. 
Why? Because eternal verities are not to be 
proved by human testimony. There is a reason. 
"Neither will they believe though one was raised 



248 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

from the dead." And they did not. All of our 
knowledge comes from the Word of God. I be- 
lieve in the whole Gospel, a whole Christ, a whole 
heaven, and a whole hell. If there is no hell, 
there is no heaven. All that you know about 
heaven you get from that Word; all that you 
know about hell you get from that Book. Jesus 
Christ was the most gentle man that ever walked 
this earth, but he told the most terrible truths 
in regard to the fact of hell — he told us so that 
we might avoid it. It is not a threat; it is a 
warning. You take your Bibles and you read, 
"Hell hath enlarged herself." And again, "It is 
better for thee to enter into life maimed, than 
having two hands to go into hell, into the fire 
that never shall be quenched: where their worm 
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Who 
said so? Jesus. "And if thy foot offend thee, 
cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into 
life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, 
into the fire that never shall be quenched : where 
their worm dieth not, and the fire is not 
quenched." "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck 
it out : it is better for thee to enter into the king- 
dom of God with one eye, than having two eyes 
to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth 



WORDS THAT BURN 249 

not, and the fire is not quenched." Jesus Christ 
knew what He was talking about. 

Listen to my text, Jesus' words: "In hell he 
lifted up his eyes." Who was he? A church 
member. George Whitefield was preaching one 
time in Philadelphia in his inimitable manner, 
and he said, "Gabriel, are there any Methodists 
in heaven?" "No." "Any Presbyterians in 
heaven?" "No." "Any Baptists in heaven?" 
"No." And he might have said, "Any Holiness 
people in heaven?" "No." "Well, who have you 
there?" "All those who have washed their robes 
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." 
"Any Methodists in hell?" "Yes." "Any Presby- 
terians in hell?" "Yes." "Any Baptists in hell?" 
"Yes." "Any Holiness people in hell?" "Yes." 
Your church membership will not save you; 
your profession will not save you; your mere 
testimony will not save you. The Bible says, 
"They were saved by the blood of the Lamb and 
the word of their testimony," but the blood comes 
first. That is the teaching of God's Word. This 
man was a church member. Listen! I am not 
asking your pardon for saying so, I am not apol- 
ogizing for the truth, I do not believe that half 
the people who make a profession of Jesus Christ 
have ever been saved, and I do not believe that 



250 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

half of the people who profess to having been 
sanctified have received the blessing. Why? "By 
their fruits ye shall know them." I labored with 
Dr. Keen a few years ago, and he has put it 
on record that 75 per cent of the church members 
that he prayed with when they were dying, he 
had to pray that they might be ready. Church 
mjembers ! This man was a church member. "In 
hell he lifted up his eyes." He had the Bible; 
had the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament; 
he had the Scriptures to which Jesus referred 
when He said, "Search the Scriptures, they are 
they which testify of me." These thirty-nine 
books testify of Jesus. This man had these books 
— had them in his home. He was an orthodox 
Jew; he was a member of the church, but he 
died without any hope, just as many a church 
member has died. It takes more than your name 
on the church record, it takes more than sprin- 
kling a few drops of water on you or going in 
the river; it takes more than partaking of the 
sacraments to make a man a Christian. You can 
support the preacher, you can give your money 
to the church, you can make a profession, you 
can have a button in your buttonhole labeled, 
"Holiness unto the Lord," and die and go to hell. 
Bible Salvation is a life — just as good on Mbn- 



WORDS THAT BURN 251 

day as it is on Sunday; just as good in the middle 
of winter timie as it is in Campmeeting season. 
Just as good when you are 1,000 miles away 
from campmeeting and the folks that know you 
— just as life-giving, just as soul sustaining, just 
as heaven-inspiring — as it is when you are sur- 
rounded by the saints. I enjoy Christian fellow- 
ship; I enjoy the songs of Zion. Sometimes I 
hardly know whether I am in the body or out of 
it when some saint of God gets hold in prayer 
and the skies begin to open and the glory flows; 
but God bless you ! your salvation or miine does 
not depend on the number of Christians there 
are around us ; it depends on our personal rela- 
tion to God. 

This man was a church member of good stand- 
ing, but Jesus Christ, moving in the power of 
the Spirit, giving heaven-born truths into the 
world, Jesus Christ says, this man died and "in 
hell he lifted up his eyes." Church member! 
Orthodox, good standing! 

We know something of hell. In hell they see ; 
they know heaven is afar off, and they know it 
is not for them,. There is a legend, Tantalus 
ever standing with a fountain of water rising 
right up to his lips. He is thirsty, and oh, if he 
could only have a drink ! if he could only have a 



252 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

drink! He bends his body forward to take a 
drink of the water, and it recedes, and when he 
straightens up the water rises right up to his 
lips. Thirsty! Days, weeks, months without 
water! Moves forward again to take a drink 
and the water recedes, rises again and the water 
rises right to his lips, but the water is not for 
him. The lost in hell know that over yonder 
somewhere in God's great empire, there is a 
heaven, there is a place where the redeemed 
gather, where there is no night, where there is 
no sickness, where there are no tears, and they 
know it is not for them! Once they might have 
been saved, once they might have had the peace 
and joy of the redeemed, but it has gone by for- 
ever, and they are eternally lost. They know 
that in hell. Hell is no joke; hell is not a dream ; 
hell is not an imagination. God tells us in His 
Word that there is a hell that awaits the man 
who rejects the truth of God. You do not have 
to get drunk, do not have to be an adulterer, do 
not have to be licentious, do not have to be un- 
clean; you can be a good citizen, pay off your 
debts, live a moral life and die and go to hell 
simply because you reject Jesus Christ and re- 
fuse to walk in the light that God gives you. 
You can be very respectable and go to hell ; you 



WORDS THAT BURN 253 

can have the good opinion of your neighbors, 
and go to hell; you can be a good husband, and 
go to hell. Listen! God in His Word says to 
us, "Because there is wrath, beware!" The 
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against 
all unrighteousness and ungodliness of man. It 
means something to be a Christian; it means 
something to live for God. Some people think 
that because they pay their debts and live an 
outwardly respectable life, that is about all that 
is required of them. Any honest man will pay 
his debts; morality is only another name for de- 
cency in sinning, and it has never saved any- 
body yet. The young man said, "All these have 
I kept from my youth up," yet came to Jesus 
and said, "What shall I do to inherit eternal 
lile?" He knew he did not have it, and he was 
moral. Oh, it means something to live for God ! 
The lost in hell know the saints are at rest — 
know the enjoyment of heaven. There will be 
many a girl wake up in hell and say, "My mother 
is over there : she shed tears for me : she exhort- 
ed me, she lived for God before me, but I am lost 
forever." You say, "Look here, preacher; hell 
is the abode of spirits !" No, not alone ; it is the 
abode of men who have bodies just as you and 
I have. You say, "You cannot prove it." There 



254 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

is a resurrection of the just and unjust, a reunit- 
ing of soul and body; the soul and body will stand 
before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, and 
the Judge will say, "Depart from me ye cursed 
into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and 
his angels." 

Another thing they do in hell — they feel. This 
man in hell lifted up his eyes being in torment. 
He said, "I am tormented." That is a feeling. 
Tormented! "I might have been saved, but the 
harvest is past. I had conviction which was 
wrought by the Holy Ghost; I saw others going 
to the altar and praying through to victory, but 
I rejected Jesus, grieved the Holy Ghost, ignored 
the truth, and now I am lost in hell forever." 
Man is the author of his own damnation, man 
is fixing his own destiny by his actions in this 
life. God says so right here in His Word. 

Another thing we know they do in hell — they 
pray — and, listen! I want you to get it — if the 
doctors did not drug you before you died, you 
would pray before you went to hell. Nine-tenths 
of the people who die today die drugged by the 
doctors, and pass out into eternity unconscious! 
If you did not give that drug to the sinner be- 
fore the black demons who are waiting around 
his bedside began to take hold of him, he would 



WORDS THAT BURN 255 

scream! and cry to God for mercy. I was with 
a wounded soldier boy who was waiting for a 
car to come and take him to the hospital. I had 
to listen to that dying boy in blue: "O God! O 
God ! O God ! Have mercy on my soul !" There 
were a lot of soldier boys around there, but no- 
body laughed; there was silence — he was facing 
eternity — going out into eternity unsaved. I was 
nineteen years of age, and I can hear him yet: 
"O God! O God! O God! Have mercy on my 
soul!" Oh, if it were not for your drugs they 
would pray before they go to hell. This man in 
hell prayed. What for ? A drop of water! Did 
not get it. Prayed for mercy. Did not get it. 
Mercy is offered here; mercy is all around us; 
grace has been provided, but when men reject 
the mercy and refuse the grace, they will wake 
up in hell and pray for mercy, and plead for 
grace — but mercy and grace are refused. This 
man prayed, but in hell there is no answer. 

They are hopeless in hell; weeping, gnashing 
their teeth, biting their lips, chewing their 
tongues — hopeless, despairing, curse God, curse 
Jesus Christ, curse the Holy Ghost, curse the 
preacher that did not preach the truth, curse the 
church member who lived alongside of them and 
did not talk to them about their souls. Hell is 



256 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

a place where hate reigns predominantly and 
eternally. 

Hell is the prison house of the damned. I was 
in a city one time; I wanted my boy to see what 
sin would do for folks, so I took him into the 
jail. The little fellow clung to me and held on 
to my hand, never opened his mouth, just looked 
up in my face, looked at the jail, looked at the 
benches in the cells, looked at the cold, bare 
walls, looked at the prisoners, and he came out 
with a scared look on his face and never said 
one word. Hell, the prison house of the 
damned. No comfort, no joy, no peace, no com- 
munion, not even with one another. Curse God, 
curse each other. Hell is the prison house of 
the damned! 

He was a church member, but he was in hell. 
May one time have had an experience, but he 
died without God and in hell he lifted up his eyes 
being in torment. In hell they want to die. 
Somebody told me one time, "An Englishman is 
dying over there; you go over and see him. He 
does not want to see you, but you go over and 
see him." I went and found that he was dying 
with a cancer, and every time a pain would 
strike him he would groan and would say, "I 
wish I had a knife!" And directly he would say, 



WORDS THAT BURN 257 

"Oh, let me have a razor ! Oh, if I had a razor 
I would stop this!" But, listen! no matter how 
terrible the paroxysms in hell, they never com- 
mit suicide. How many suicides in the United 
States last year? Suicides; but you cannot com- 
mit suicide in hell. They want to die in hell — 
* and cannot. 

Every man and woman here tonight is facing 
an eternal heaven or an eternal hell. Which 
way are you going? Can you stand up and say, 
"Yes, by the grace of God I am going to heaven ; 
I have the witness of the Spirit that I am a child 
of God?" If you cannot, God help you! "The 
words that I speak unto you, they shall judge 
you in the last day." God says so. I am dealing 
with God's truth. I challenge any man in this 
room or anywhere else to come to my room and 
point out to me anything that I am preaching 
that is not the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Cannot repent in hell. The devil says, "There 
is time enough yet, time enough yet." But, lis- 
ten ! This man said, "Send Lazarus that he may 
warn my brothers that they may repent." He 
never says anything about repenting himself — 
he knows there is no repentance in hell. Oh, 
aren't they sorry in hell? Yes, but that is not 
repentance. Repentance is a godly sorry for sin. 



258 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

There is no repentance in hell. That old Bible 
says, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the 
unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return 
unto the Lord, for he will have mercy and to 
our God, for He will abundantly pardon." There 
is pardon; there is mercy. When? "Now is the 
accepted time; now is the day of salvation." "By 
the grace of God Jesus Christ tasted death for 
every man." "Whosoever will let him come." 
"Oh, if it is that easy, I can find God any time 
I want to." No, you cannot do it. There have 
been people here who have been coming and com- 
ing to the altar and are not saved yet ; and I knew 
a girl who sought the Lord for six weeks, and 
finally she got through, and before the year was 
over I preached her funeral sermon. If you can 
be saved anytime, why was not that girl saved 
at the beginning, will you please tell me J You 
cannot be saved any time you please. There are 
conditions to be complied with. Dr. Chaplin was 
dying, and the agony was so great he said, "Oh, 
I pity any sinner that has to try to get ready at 
a time like this." My Bible says, "Now is the 
accepted time." My Bible says, "Be ye also 
ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the 
son of man cometh." 

Listen! There are no children in hell! Say, 



WORDS THAT BURN 259 

you remember when you stood in your parlor and 
looked down on the sweet little face in the white 
casket — the corpse of your child. You will never 
see it again. Listen, sinner — you will never see 
that child again ! There are no children in hell. 
"There angels do always behold the face of my 
Father which is in heaven. ,, Jesus Christ who 
tells us there is a heaven and a hell, says of 
children, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
Listen, sinner ! When you saw the little child in 
that casket in your parlor you took your last look 
at that little one you will ever have, for there 
are no children in hell. There are no homes in 
hell. Home is where love presides ; home is where 
love reigns. There may be no piano, there may 
be no velvet carpet, there may be no paintings on 
the wall, but if there is love there, it is home; but 
there are no homes in hell, for there is no love 
in hell. Oh, we know something about hell; we 
know from this Word. Everyone that enters 
the eternal world saved through the blood of 
Jesus Christ have the love of God shed abroad 
in their hearts by the Holy Ghost. Love reigns 
in heaven — hate reigns in hell. 

I saw a foretaste of hell one time. It was 
on a campground in Indiana. A young man 
came to the altar, knelt down and pulled out o* 



2<5o THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

his pocket a bottle of morphine and handed it to 
my co-laborer, saying, "Take this; I do not want 
it any more." Brother L took it and provi- 
dentially smashed it all to pieces. The next day 

Brother L saw that young man and he said, 

"How are you today?" "Not very well," and 
his nerves were twitching, but he said, "I am not 
going back to it." He knelt at the altar a second 
time and we prayed for him, but his nerves were 
all on fire. Sunday morning, the last day of the 
Camp, someone came around to our little cottage 
and said, "That young man is down here wanting 
morphine." I went down to where he was, and 
there he lay with his head pillowed on his moth- 
er's shoulder and he said, "I want morphine; I 
must have morphine." He said, "Brother, go 
harness up that horse; I will drive thirty miles. 
I know the doctor will give it to me. Great G^d, 
I am in hell ! Great God, I want morphine !" His 
mother said, "Now, Everett, we will pray for 
you." Somebody said, "Look to Jesus." He 
said, "Oh, Jesus nothing!" They sent for the 
doctor and he said, "Doctor, give me a shot in 
there." Somebody said, "Don't you give him 
any; he has smashed his morphine bottle and is 
trying to break away from it. Don't you give it 
to him," He said, "Oh, I am dying; I am in 



WORDS THAT BURN 261 

hell, and I have to have it ! I have to have it !" 
I said, "There is a foretaste of hell/' Oh, I saw 
that. But, listen! You cannot get morphine in 
hell. Oh, that is an example of hell ! Make that 
eternal and multiply it by forever, and you have 
the agonies of the damned. God help us ! What- 
ever your sin is, you had better repent of it, for 
it is sin that sends men to hell. 

Over in Kentucky a member of the church lay 
on his death bed, and he realized he was dying 
and said, "I am lost ! I am lost ! I ami lost !" His 
wife said, "No, husband, you are not lost. Oh, 
what could the church have done without you? 
You have been a stand-by to the church all these 
years. You are not lost." She sends over to 
get the preacher. He comes. "Husband says 
he is lost; comfort him." The preacher walks 
over and the man says, "I am lost! I am lost! I 
am lost !" The preacher says, "No, brother, you 
are not lost. You have been the pillar of the 
church on which it could depend." He walked 
away and said, "He is delirious." He said, "I 
am not delirious; you are my pastor; that man 
there owned the farm next to me when I was 
farming in the country. There is my wife sit- 
ting there. Don't tell me I am delirious; don't 
tell me of my church work. I am lost ! I am dy- 



262 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

ing and going to hell, and I am a church mem- 
ber." So was this man, and in hell he lifted up 
his eyes. Bunyan says, "There is a way to hell 
from the very gate of heaven." 



WORDS THAT BURN 263 



XV 
AFTER THIS- 



"It is appointed unto man once to die, but after 
this " (Heb. 9:27). 

God's appointments always come round. 
When Captain Scott, the intrepid Englishman 
who went into the Anarctic regions hoping to 
discover the South Pole, he made all the arrange- 
ments for success that human wisdom and fore- 
thought could devise ; he had relays of provisions 
left for them on their return, he had engaged a 
party to come in time to a certain place to meet 
them. He went south, was bitterly disappointed 
to find a Scandinavian explorer had been there 
and left the evidence of his discovery. He start- 
ed with his companions on the way back, came 
midst the most terrific storms man had ever en- 
countered, and found that someone had failed 
him. He laid down to die and before passing 
away he wrote in his diary, "We did the best 
we knew, made all the arrangements that expe- 
rience and wisdom of man could devise, but 



264 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

our appointments have failed." Valiant man, 
brave heart, must die disappointed because man's 
appointments fail! But God's never fail! It is 
not only appointed that man shall die, but after 
this there is an appointment that all must reach 
and meet. After life, after the Gospel, after the 
last sermon has been heard, after the last con- 
viction has been wrought in the heart by the 
Holy Ghost, after you have attended the last 
meeting, heard the last prayer, after the sight 
Of your loved ones has faded out from your 
vision, after the last pressure of the hand, after 
the last goodbye, after the death damp has been 
wiped from your brow, after the doctor says, 
"He is gone." What then? 

Oh, yes; this does concern you; it is the ap- 
pointment that God has made for you. Death 
is on your track — nearer now than ever before. 
How old are you? Twenty years? Death has 
gained twenty years on you. Fifty years old? 
Death has gained fifty years on you. Does not 
concern the young so much ? Oh, it surely does ; 
there are more young folks die than any others. 
Half of the race die before they are fifteen years 
old. The average age of the remainder is thirty- 
eight years. Only one person in five hundred 
reaches the age of sixty-five. Your pulse is beat- 



WORDS THAT BURN 265 

ing funeral marches to the grave. Hear the 
poet as he sings the truth that you do not want 
to hear, you do not like to think about. You may 
as well acknowledge it, you do not like to hear 
such sermons as I am preaching; you want bou- 
quets and rosewater; you forget that the man 
who is called of God to preach the Gospel is called 
to preach not what you want to hear, but what 
you ought to hear. The poet was true to human 
experience : 

Lo, on a narrow neck of land, 
'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand, 

Secure, insensible. 
A moment's time, a moment's space, 
'Removes me to that heavenly place, 

Or shuts me up in hell. 

Death is an enemy. I read the other day one 
of the miaxims of the Duke of Wellington, and 
it read like this: "Never undervalue your ene- 
my." Death is a monster, the last enemy that 
shall be destroyed is death. God's Word for it — 
and you must meet death. Think of it now, hear 
the Master say, "Be ye also ready for in such 
an hour as you think not," you must meet this 
enemy. 



266 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

"My thoughts on awful subjects roll. 

Damnation and the dead. 
What horrors seize a guilty soul, 

Upon a dying bed." 

"But O the soul where vengeance reigns. 

It sinks with groans and endless cries; 
It rolls amidst the burning flames, 

In endless woes and agonies. 
There swallowed up in darkest night 

Where devils hoivl and thunders roar, 
To rage in keen despair and guilt, 

When thousand thousand years are o'er." 

Death is an hour of testing. Testing even to 
saints. Thomas Walsh, one of Wesley's preach- 
ers, was on his death bed and the enemy had 
pursued him to the very end. He cried to God 
in agony of soul for deliverance, and He heard 
and the shadows fled away. But what must it 
be to the sinner who has failed to make the need- 
ed preparation for the hereafter. I was called 
once to see a man who was in the agonies of 
death. It was an awful scene, but all the agonies 
of the body can never atone for the sins of the 
soul. A woman was dying and she said to the 
doctor, "I will give you half of what I am worth 
if you will prolong my life six months. " He 



WORDS THAT BURN 267 

replied, "Madami, I have medicine to dispense, 
but I cannot dispense time." But after the six 
months are gone, what then? Louis the Four- 
teenth said when dying, "The thoughts of the 
past trouble me." A man went to a campmeeting 
and was wonderfully wrought upon by the Holy 
Spirit. When approached by one of the workers 
he said, "I have no time for religion. I ami very 
busy." But he had to take time to die; then he 
was troubled because at that meeting he had said 
no to God, and he declared with his dying 
breath, "God left me that night." But will you 
please get the thought, the agony of the intense 
regret at that solemn moment did not atone for 
the sin in rejecting the call of the Spirit. Dr. 
Ichabod Spencer tells us in his book, "A Pastor's 
Sketches," of a Universalist who on his death 
bed renounced his universalism and exhorted his 
son to follow his mother's teaching. He said: 
"Die? I will not. I spurned my mother's pray- 
ers; I was mean to my godly wife, and now hell 
is my doom forever." His wife exhorted him to 
pray; Dr. S. pointed him to Jesus; but all of no 
avail. His past rejections of the Christ seemed 
to appall his soul, and he died in despair and 
without any hope or any repentance. But after 
this — what then? We all must die because one 



268 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

man sinned, and so death passed upon all men for 
that all men have sinned; but please remember 
that judgment is personal. The sinner and the 
saint will appear in the eternal world just exactly 
as they were when they left this one. Same per- 
son, same character, same record for God to 
scan. Then man will reap just exactly as he 
sowed, and just what he sowed. The past deter- 
mines the future. On the night of the fourteenth 
of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, Abra- 
ham Lincoln went to the theater to see a play 
called "Our American Cousin. " He sat in a 
private box, and while there Wilkes Booth came 
along the corridor, entered the box and shot the 
President right behind the right ear. The bullet 
destroyed the nerves of sensation and the nerve 
of motion. Mr. Lincoln never knew what struck 
him. He was carried across the street into a 
house where he died at eight twenty the next 
morning. Booth made his escape, jumping from 
the box to the floor of the stage, his stirrup 
catching in the flag which draped the box, caused 
him to fall and sprain his ankle. He made his 
way out of the rear of the theater, mounted a 
horse that was ready for him, and went across 
the long bridge into Virginia. The U. S. Calvary 
were on his track and they overtook him in a 



WORDS THAT BURN 269 

barn in a little village in the rear of Fredericks- 
burg, where he was lying wounded. The orders 
to the soldiers were not to shoot, as they wanted 
to take him alive; but a fanatic named Boston 
Corbett fired from his carbine and the bullet en- 
tered right behind the right ear, exactly where 
Booth's ball struck Mr. Lincoln, with this differ- 
ence, only one nerve was destroyed — the nerve 
of motion. Booth could not move a limb, but he 
knew all that was transpiring; he was reaping 
what he sowed and more than he sowed. He 
died knowing the way of the transgressor is 
hard, and the end is harder. After this a judg- 
ment for deeds done in the body. Every word, 
every thought, every secret thing. God sees and 
knows and hears, and keeps the record. For ev- 
ery abused privilege we shall give an account, 
and let us remember that unused privileges are 
abused privileges. What have you done with 
time? How did you spend it? What use did 
you mJake of the Word given to you. Oh, eter- 
nity will be an awful eternity to the man who 
has simply neglected his privileges. I am con- 
vinced after a ministry of over forty-five years, 
that the preachers of today are not making 
enough of eternal verities. The people have 
heaped to themselves teachers, because they want 



270 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

their ears tickled. There are very few who are 
in the same rank with the eloquent Frenchman 
who said, "When I endeavor to represent eter- 
nity, I avail myself of whatever I can conceive 
most firm and durable. I heap imagination on 
imagination, conjecture on conjecture. I go 
from one age to the time of publishing the Gos- 
pel, then to the publication of the law, and from 
the law to the flood, and from the flood to cre- 
ation. I join this epoch to the present time, and 
. I imagine Adam yet living. Had Adam lived 
till now, and had he lived in misery, had he 
passed all his time on a rack, or in a fire, what 
an idea must we form of his condition? At what 
price would we agree to expose ourselves to mis- 
eries so great? What imperial glory would ap- 
pear glorious were it followed by so much woe; 
yet this is not eternity — all this is nothing in 
comparison with Eternity. I go further still. I 
proceed from imagination to imagination, from 
supposition to supposition, I take the greatest 
number of years that can be imagined. I add 
ages to ages, millions of ages to millions of ages. 
I form of all these one mixed number, and I 
stay my imagination. After this I suppose God 
to create a world like this which we inhabit. I 
suppose Him creating it by forming one atom 



WORDS THAT BURN 271 

after another, and employing in the production 
of each atom the time fixed in my last calculation. 
What a numberless sum of ages would the pro- 
duction of such a world in such a manner re- 
quire? Then I suppose tfye Creator to arrange 
these atoms and to pursue the plan of arranging 
them as of creating them. Finally, I suppose 
Him to annihilate the whole, observing the same 
method in the dissolution as in the creation and 
disposition of the whole. What an immense du- 
ration would be consumed — and yet, this is not 
eternity — it is only a point in comparison thereof. 
Reaping time is coming and it is an eternal reap- 
ing! One night passed in a burning fever, or 
in struggling among the waves of the sea, be- 
tween life and death, appears of immense length. 
It seems to the sufferer as if the sun had forgot- 
ten its course, and as if all the laws of nature 
itself were subverted. What then will be the 
state of these victims to Divine displeasure, who 
after they shall have passed through the ages 
We have just described, will be obliged to make 
this awful reflection, "All this is but an atom of 
our misery." What will their despair be when 
they shall be forced to say to themselves, "Again 
we must revolve through these enormous periods, 
again we must suffer the privation of celestial 



272 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

happiness, devouring flames again, cruel remorse 
again, crimes and blasphemies again and again — 
for ever and for ever." These chains forever! 
Oh, the absorbing periods of eternity, accumu- 
lated ages upon myriads of ages, these will be 
the forever of the lost! 

We must get rid of all contraband goods if 
we would avoid the agonies of the damned. All 
sin, all anger, pride, malice, unforgiveness, all 
slanderous words. I was one time crossing the 
border, and the porter came to me and said, 
"Captain, if you do not want to be awakened 
when the inspectors come through, just open your 
suitcase and I will look after it and close it up 
after inspection." I did not fear any inspection, 
and so did as he told me; but across the aisle 
there was a man who had something of which 
he was in doubt about its passing. He had quite 
a time with the conductor, telling him and asking 
for information. Well, God will be the Inspector 
and it becomes us to be careful, for after this 
there will nothing pass that He hates — and the 
only thing that God hates is sin in the heart — 
and it will not escape His all-searching eye. The 
history of the heart will be laid open, and how 
can men hope to escape when every day he car- 
ries around with hiin the evidence of his fall ; 



WORDS THAT BURN 273 

for whether he likes to think of it or not, a suit 
of clothes on the individual is evidence he be- 
longs to a fallen race; for when man was inno- 
cent he wore no clothes and did not know he was 
naked. With sin came shame, and man finally 
got to a place where sin had wrought such havoc 
with him! that he could not blush. God says so 
in His Word. Read your Bibles and see. 

After this, man will be judged for what he 
did not do. To him that knoweth to do good 
and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Knowledge 
without action is simply good for nothing. Live 
up to what you know, or it is so much the worse 
for you. You might have repented and you did 
not. You did not seek God, you did not mind 
the Spirit, you did not improve the time, you did 
not obey God, you did not pray, you did not do 
good when you knew what good was ; and let me 
say right here, the church of Jesus Christ will 
be judged by the same rule. To the church that 
knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to that 
church it is sin. We preach to the world around 
us and we ignore the truths we preach, forget- 
ting, apparently, that as we measure out to oth- 
ers it will be measured to us. We preach, "If 
any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none 
of His/' Please apply that to the church today. 



274 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

"If any church have not the Spirit of Christ it 
is none of His." It works both ways. Every 
coin has two sides to it, and every truth that we 
preach we should preach to ourselves first. The 
church must live the truth it professes; it must 
back up the pulpit by a life. I am heartily in 
sympathy with Mr. Spurgeon when he condemns 
the relation of past sins with the gusto that some 
folks have. Sin is awful, and no saint of God 
can look upon the sins of the past with any 
complacency. Let me give you Mr. Spurgeon's 
exact words. You may not like them, but I do, 
and if you do not, it is evidence you need them. 
"I must confess that I am shocked with some 
people I know who glibly rehearse their past 
lives up to the time of their supposed conversion, 
and talk of their sins, which they hope have been 
forgiven them, with a smack of their lips as 
though there was something fine in having been 
such an offender. I hate to hear a man speak 
of his experience in sin as a Greenwich pensioner 
might talk of Trafalgar and the Nile. The best 
thing to do with our past sins, if it be forgiven, 
is to bury it. Yes, and let us bury it as they used 
to bury suicides, let us drive a stake through it, 
in horror and contempt, and never set up a mon- 
umient to its memory. If you ever do tell any- 



WORDS THAT BURN 275 

thing of your youthful wrongdoing, let it be with 
blushes and tears, with shame and confusion of 
face, and always speak of it to the honor of the 
infinite mercy which forgave you. Never let 
the devil stand behind you and pat you on the 
back and say, 'You did me a good turn in those 
days.' Oh, it is a shameful thing to have sinned, 
a degrading thing to have lived in sin, and it is 
not to be wrapped up into a story telling and 
told out as an exploit, as some do. The old man 
is crucified with him who boasts of being related 
to the crucified felon. If any member of your 
family had been hanged, you would tremble to 
hear janyone mention the gallows, you would 
not run about and say, 'Do you know I had a 
brother hanged at Newgate?' Your old man of 
sin is hanged ; do not talk about him 1 , but thank 
God it is so, and as He blots out the remembrance 
of it, do you the same, except so far as it makes 
you humble and grateful." I remember reading 
once of a man in the Pacific Garden in Chicago, 
who was in the habit of going over his past life 
and telling folks how mean he had been, but one 
night he came to the meeting and told the folks 
he would never do so again, for he had read 
in the Word where God said, "I will remember 
them no more against you," "and," said he, "if 



276 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

God will not mention them, I will not." To him 
that knoweth to do good to him it is sin. Let us 
avoid sin in every particular. 

After this, a life spent in sin, comes the Justice 
of the Infinite God, and as sure as the Bible is 
the Word of God, it means punishment for sin, 
and as the sinner in eternity is always a sinner, 
it means he is always punished: or, in other 
words, it is a punishment that is eternal. Men 
have been known to sneer at this doctrine, every- 
where but on a death bed. There they have felt, 
if conscious at all, it is an awful thing to fall 
into the hands of the living God. Human opin- 
ions and human feelings have no bearing on this 
doctrine. Albert Barnes once wrote some truths 
that are worth the consideration of every sane 
person : "The Bible travels on from age to age, 
bearing the same fearful doctrine, and is un- 
changed in its warnings and appeals. Some of each 
generation listen, are admonished, and saved. 
The rest pass on and die. Human opinions do 
not alter facts. Human opinion does not remove 
death beds, and graves and sorrows, nor will it 
remove and annihilate a world of woe. Facts 
stand unchanged by the changes of human be- 
lief, and fearful events roll on just as though 
man had expected them. Nine-tenths of all the 



WORDS THAT BURN 277 

dead expected not to die at the time when in fact 
they died, and more than half listen now to no 
admonition that death will ever come. They 
who have died had an expectation that they 
would live many years. But death came. He 
was not stayed by their belief or unbelief. He 
came steadily on. Each day he took a stride 
toward them, step by step he advanced, so that 
they could not evade or retreat until he was near 
enough to strike, and they fell. And so, though 
the living will not hear, death comes to them. 
And so the doom of the sinner rolls on. Each 
day, each hour, each moment it draws nearer. 
Whether he believes it or not it msakes no differ- 
ence in the fact — it comes. It will not recede. 
In spite of all attempts to reason, or to forget it, 
the time comes, and at the appointed time the 
sinner dies. Cavil and ridicule do not affect this. 
There is no power in a joke to put away fevers 
or convulsions and groans. The laugh and the 
song close no grave, and put back none of the 
sorrows of the second death. The dwellers in 
Pompeii could not put back the fires of the vol- 
cano by derision, nor would the mockery of the 
inhabitants of Sodom have stayed the sheet of 
flame that came from heaven. The scoffing sin- 
ner dies and is lost just like others. The young 



278 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

man who has learned to cavil and deride religion 
dies just like others. No cavil has yet changed 
a fact, none has ever stayed the arrow of death." 
God's Word is true, the comforting parts of it 
are true, and the more terrible passages are 
equally true. Man dies. God said this would 
be his portion if he transgressed the command. 
God appointed the time for man to die, and the 
very same One has said, AFTER THIS, after 
death there is a settling time, an award for the 
deeds done in this life; there is a second death, 
an eternal separation form God, and good folks 
and angels, and heaven; and it means a lake of 
fire, outer darkness, weeping and wailing and 
gnashing of teeth; it means the company of the 
damned in hell forever, whoremongers, de- 
bauchees, lost spirits, angels who fell, the 
beasts and false prophets, are one and yet never 
one, for there is no unity in hell. As Dr. Munsey 
says, "Hell is a world of ugly ruins shrouded 
in night's blackest pall, where no one of the 
damned has a friend, and filled with cursings and 
strife, and where all ranks and sexes are herded 
in one promiscuous mob with foulest demons, 
and where every stinking cave is inhabited with 
fiends and gnashing ghosts, and on whose black 
crags the ravens of despair sit and croak, and 



WORDS THAT BURN 279 

where God's eternal justice plies His burning 
whip and remorse lays on his fiery thongs, the 
flashes of whips and thongs their only light — 
world without end." 

His thoughts troubled him. . . . (Dan. 5:6). 

Why should a king be troubled? He was the 
monarch of the mightiest kingdom in the earth. 
He was surrounded by fawning courtiers, no- 
bility, an army, and lived in a palace with a 
treasury at his command. Lords and ladies wait- 
ed on him. He lived in a city the walls of which 
were one Hundred and fifty feet high. They 
were so broad that four chariots could drive 
abreast on their top, and yet this king was trou- 
bled. He was strong, physically, in the prime of 
life, hearty and well — but he was miuch troubled. 
Same reason that you should be if you are not. 
He was doing what you, sinner, are doing today, 
he was trifling with sacred things. His father 
had led an army to the Holy Land, sacked the 
city, robbed the temple, brought the vessels ded- 
icated to sacred uses back to the capitol city, 
and now midst all the drunken revelry that went 
with a Babylonian banquet, he commanded the 
holy vessels to be brought out, and he was about 
to drink from them when God showed His hand. 

Did you ever stop to think that there is nothing 



280 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

really secular? 'All things are sacred, because 
they have a relation to God and eternity. What- 
soever we do we are to do it as unto the Lord. 
There is nothing that is trifling. Apeles engaged 
on a painting was very particular as to all the 
details of his subject, and one asked him, "Why 
do you pay so much attention to trifles?" and he 
answered, "I am painting for eternity." We are 
living for eternity. There are two classes of peo- 
ple in this world — timests and eternalists; this 
worldy, and the other worldly. When a cele- 
brated sculptor was working on a statue, he paid 
much attention to the hairs on the head, and some 
bystander said, "No one will see them," and he 
said, "Yes, the gods will see them." God sees 
and knows and notes down all that we do and all 
that we say, and all that we think, 'and wherever 
we go and who we are with, and why we are 
there; and in due time He will have something 
to say, and something to do. With this king the 
time was ripe for God to take part; many years 
had rolled away, but He remembered and this 
night He showed His hand. You remember that 
we sing, "It was the hand of God on the wall," 
and the poet was right. God wrote His verdict 
on the wall, Thou art weighed in the balances 
and found wanting. Weighed in God's balances. 



WORDS THAT BURN 281 

Did you ever think that like the messengers of 
old to whom the king trusted the gold and silver, 
that we, too, must "weigh in at Jerusalem?" It 
will matter then very little what men have 
thought and said about you, but it will be im- 
miensely important what God thinks just then; 
and please get the thought that I believe the 
Holy Ghost wants you to have at this time, God 
will always show His hand, and in the nearing 
of death and eternity the sinner's thoughts will 
always trouble him. 

A few years ago man stood before the altar 
to be wedded to a fair girl. to whom he pledged 
faith and loyalty. For years they worked to- 
gether to acquire a competency, but failed, and 
were seventy thousand dollars worse off than 
nothing. But again they faced the world with 
new and other propositions, and fortune smiled 
on them ; wealth flowed in, and the world was at 
their feet. He had an office and business and 
a private secretary, and she a woman, young and 
beautiful. In process of tirme the wife was di- 
vorced, and it follows she was brokenhearted, 
for the money she received could not heal the 
wounds that scarred her heart. The young and 
fairer woman now became the wife before the 
law, and with wealth at their command they went 



282 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

where they pleased, gratified every desire, feast- 
ed their eyes, and all that allured, but soon the 
former wife died, and now there came a face, 
the face of the dead between the things the world 
offered and this man, and his thoughts troubled 
him. He went hither and thither, but he saw the 
face, and carried his thoughts with him. There 
came a time when God showed His hand, uttered 
His thunders in this man's conscience, until one 
day, to get rid of the thoughts that troubled him, 
he committed suicide, went into eternity by his 
own hand — and he is thinking yet. Man cannot 
get rid of God. The Psalmist said, "If I take the 
wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost 
parts of the earth, there shall thy hand lead me 
and thy right hand shall uphold me. If I make 
my bed in hell thou art there/' 

A manufacturer beginning business promised 
God while on bended knees in prayer that if He 
prospered him he would give Him one-tenth of 
all that he made. The Lord heard and answered 
him, and money flowed in until that man was giv- 
ing God five thousand dollars a year, and then 
the devil of greed whispered, "You are giving 
too much. Where are there others who are giv- 
ing as much as you?" And he listened and said 
to himself, "I can put that in my business 
and increase my capital." But God who heard 



WORDS THAT BURN 283 

his prayer heard him thinking, and saw him 
acting out his thoughts, and one night that man 
woke up and his room was all illuminated and 
looking out of his window he saw that God was 
withdrawing from the partnership — just show- 
ing His hand, taking out His goods. Oh, do not 
forget it! You can raise more cotton, you can 
build more and larger barns, but as sure as you 
are a foot high God will be reckoned with. He 
will show His hand. You are making a record 
for Divine inspection and you cannot blot it out. 
Pilate wrote above the crucified Christ, "Jesus, 
the King of the Jews," and the Jewish officers 
came to him and complained, saying, "Write He 
said 'I am King of the Jews/ " But Pilate an- 
swered, "What I have written I have written/' 
So it is with you, with all of us; our record is 
indelible, and nothing but the blood of Jesus 
Christ can ever cancel it. What we have written 
we have written, and God sees it and will settle 
with us. It is the yesterdays that trouble the 
sinner, and the tomorrow Judgment Day. 

What might have been troubles the sinner. To 
him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, 
to him it is sin. God said so in the past and says 
so today. I did not make these facts; He made 
them and you must face them. It might have 



284 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

been so different with all of us if we had only 
minded God. The record might have been so 
different. A Chicago doctor paid attention to 
another woman than his wife, and led by his 
lusts ran off to the Pacific Coast with her. His 
wife went after him, asked him to come back and 
live as a decent man and husband should do, and 
she would forgive him. He came, and then, 
womanlike, the wife paid the fare back to Chi- 
cago of the woman who had been with him. In 
a few years he was running with her again, and 
the wife secured a divorce, the doctor then mar- 
rying his former paramour. For fifteen years 
they lived together in a Chicago home of wealth 
and splendor, but one day a pistol shot was heard, 
the wife ran into the parlor, and there on the 
velvet carpet laid the doctor. The neighbors ran 
in and found her wringing her hands and saying, 
"Oh, he would not forget; he would think!" He 
could not forget. God would not let him. The 
past troubled him, his thoughts troubled him and 
over yonder he is troubled yet. 

Faces of the dead trouble some folks. A 
thoughtless husband, fond of stag parties, often 
went off and left his wife alone in the home. 
But perhaps you do not know what a stag party 
is. Well, you ought to know, and I will tell you. 



WORDS THAT BURN 285 

It is a party where there are no women, where 
women are not wanted; and whenever you find 
anything of that kind, there is some deviltry go- 
ing on, generally. Men always need the refining 
presence of the other sex. Place a lot of men 
together away from home, and their morals de- 
generate, and as a consequence of degenerated 
morals there is conversation that is not fit for 
print. Every old soldier knows this to be true. 
There is more deviltry going on in the army 
where there are all men, and results show it, 
than society ever dreamed of. Put an army in 
camp near a city and as a consequence the birth- 
rate in that city increases. Statistics in the past 
have proved it. This man went off on stag par- 
ties so often that one time when he returned, 
his wife said, "Oh, husband, I do wish you would 
stay home some with me." And the brute said, 
"What do you wlant? Haven't you got a good 
home? If you want more money, say so, and 
you can have it." He seemed not to know that 
four square walls do not make a home. One time 
he went off to the woods with one of his stag 
parties, and while he was gone she was taken 
sick, and it) a few days died. Wire could not 
reach him. Mails could not, so when he came 
back he looked on a face in a coffin, a face that 



286 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

was to haunt him in all the coming years. 
Through with stag parties now, when it was too 
late. Mourns now, stays home now, when it is 
too late. Oh, no, Mr. Longfellow, you are 
wrong; there is no "dead past" — the past is very 
much alive until there is repentance and it goes 
under the blood. 

Faces of the dead? Yes, photographed by 
memory in the indelible of eternity. A woman 
was left with several children. The bread win- 
ner was lying out in yonder graveyard, and she 
determined she would keep them together, cost 
what it might. You know that a woman will 
keep the children together when a man can see 
no way to do it. This mother kept them, trained 
them, worked hard to educate them, saw them 
all married and prospering. The eldest took her 
home, just as he should have done; no man can 
neglect his mother and have the blessing of the 
God of the skies rest upon him, After some years 
she was on her death bed. The children were all 
there, lovingly watching and ministering to her, 
"Mother, you have always been a good mother to 
us." She turned her old gray head towards him, 
looked him clear through and said, "John, you 
never said so before" The poor old soul had 
longed for some words of appreciation, but they 



WORDS THAT BURN 287 

had not come. True she had a good home, all 
that money could buy, but she wanted to hear 
something, some words that never came, till the 
end was near. See that face? Yes. Troubled 
by the memory? Oh, yes. Say, young man, go 
to see your mother; write her a letter — say a 
love letter — she is your best girl; tell her what 
her heart longs to hear, and you will feel better. 
Opportunities gone haunt the sinner, and they 
come back only in the memory. Just to think, 
the Man of Calvary, He of the nail-pierced hand, 
has stood and knocked at the door of your heart. 
He whom angels worshiped, who had all the 
glories of heaven as His own, before He came 
to this world, knocks, again and again at the 
door of your heart, and says, "If any man will 
hear my voice, and open unto me I will come in 
and sup with him and he with Me." And yet 
men bar Him out, keep him standing there with 
the dews upon His head, but still pleading to 
comie in, standing there until at last He goes 
away, driven by neglect and coldness and wick- 
edness, to return no more forever. A woman 
missed her daughter one night, missed her for 
six long years, sought her every place, until all 
the money was gone, and heart still breaking. 
One night she walked into a police station, saw 



288 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

the chief, told him the story, and the police offi- 
cer guessed the rest — and guessed correctly. He 
said to her, "Go home and bring me your photo- 
graph and I will see what I can do." A few 
hours more and she was there handing a photo 
to the chief, who looking at it said, "This is not 
you." And she replied with choking voice, "That 
is my picture as I was when she went away. If 
I was to give you my picture as I am now, she 
would not know it." The chief took the picture 
down to the red-light district, saw the proprietor 
of a dance hall where the women of the town 
were in the habit of going, and told him to hang 
the picture up on one of the pillars of the room. 
He did so and it hung there several months. 
One night he came into the hall about twelve 
o'clock at night and saw a number of the girls 
looking down on the floor. He went to them and 
said, "What is the matter?" And the reply was, 
"Nellie has fainted." "What made her faint?" 
"Why, she saw that picture." The man gathered 
her up in his arms, took her down to his auto, 
and started with her somewhere, when the cool 
air restored her to consciousness and she asked, 
"Where are you taking me?" "I am taking you 
to your mother. Be still — I know the whole 
story. Your mother is waiting for >;ou." They 



WORDS THAT BURN 289 

reached the home, the mother was waiting, and 
soon she was back again in the arms of a mother 
whose love had never once failed. The sight of 
that mother's face won her back to love and 
home. But oh, the grief of it! Nineteen centu- 
ries ago the God of the universe so loved that 
He allowed His own Son to hang on that middle 
cross for six mortal hours, nailed there by your 
sins and mine, and yet men today, sinners, are 
trampling the blood of Jesus under their feet, 
are counting it a common thing. Calvary is in 
the world's vision today, but men see it not, pass 
it by. God commended His love, but man today 
ignores the Christ, and goes on to sin and death. 
Remembered sins haunt the sinner. Like Ban- 
quo's ghost, they will not down. A few years 
ago a murder was committed at Blue Island. A 
man who once boarded with an old resident and 
his granddaughter who kept house for him, after 
a year's absence camie back and asked again for 
the privilege of boarding with them. The old 
man said, "Just as daughter says." She replied, 
"He can have his old room." So he took posses- 
sion. In the course of time he ascertained the 
old man had some money, which he kept in the 
mattress on his bed. One night the boarder came 
downstairs in his stocking feet, went out into 



2 9 o THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

the woodshed, got the ax, entered the room, 
smashed in the head of the man, then killed the 
granddaughter, and was putting his hand under 
the mattress to take the money when a dog 
barked, and thinking the neighbors were 
aroused, he left hastily and without the money. 
For a year he went over the West, working here 
and there, until one day he walked into the po- 
lice station* at Chicago and accosting the desk 
sergeant he said, "I want to give myself up." 
"What for?" asked the officer. "For murder," 
said the culprit. "Where?" was the next ques- 
tion. "At Blue Island, one year ago I murdered 
an old man and his granddaughter." "What 
brought you back?" "I will tell you. When I 
took the old man's life I was after the money 
he had in his mattress. I reached my hand out 
to take it when I heard a dog bark. I left, think- 
ing the neighbors were aroused, and went West, 
but no matter where I went I could hear that 
dog bark. I would lie down at night and wake 
up startled by the barking of the dog. I have 
come back to get rid of that dog's bark." Every 
sinner has a dog on his track. Memory will 
haunt him ; aye, he has a pack of hounds on his 
track; memory and conscience will never cease 



WORDS THAT BURN 291 

to bark, and only by repentance towards God can 
an evil conscience be purged. 

There will come to every sinner to trouble him 
the miemory of opportunities that he murdered. 
Off the coast of Scotland there was a bell buoy, 
placed there by the government of Great Britain 
to warn the sailor in times of fog. One day a 
young man in a sheer spirit of recklessness de- 
stroyed the bell buoy and the government never 
replaced it. The young man became a sailor; 
after a while was a captain and sailing his vessel 
off the coast of Scotland he was caught in a dense 
fog, and his vessel wrecked ; his life was lost and 
some rescued sailors said that he kept crying, 
"Oh, for the bell buoy," but he had destroyed it 
years before. 

Many a sinner when the cold hand of death 
comes feeling round his heartstrings will cry 
for the sermon he once sneered at, will long for 
an altar call and a mourners' bench, and the 
prayers of the saints, but they will never come 
back. 

A coming judgment haunts the sinner, trou- 
bles the sinner. It is not death that men fear. 
It is what comes after death. Man will meet all 
his sinful record at the judgment. "Know thou, 
that for all these t Jungs God will bring thee to 



292 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

judgment/' And the Christ that men reject to- 
day will be the Judge. The person you do not 
want to see is not the person that injured you, 
but the one you have injured. And the sinner 
has injured Jesus, insulted Him, turned Him 
away. Did you ever read Whittier's "Skipper 
Ireton?" He tells of the Skipper of a fishing 
vessel that went out at the beginning of the sea- 
son to fish. The skipper getting the first catch 
of fish and first back to Marblehead % would get 
the highest prices. Ireton secured his haul of fish 
and was on the way back when he saw a fishing 
vessel wrecked, and the crew in the water. As he 
drew near they begged him to take them on, but 
he, intent on the gold, passed therm by, leaving 
them to die. His crew told the story, and the wom- 
en of Marblehead, widows of the sailors he passed 
bv, tarred and feathered him, rode him on a rail, 
but Whittier makes Ireton to say, "It is not the 
reproach of the tar and feathers, nor the riding 
on the rail that stings me, but I see the faces of 
the men I left to drown, the white hands uplifted. 
the dying cry for help." So the sinner all 
through the ages of eternity will see the face of 
the mother who prayed, the wife who wept, the 
children who fasted, that he might be saved. 
He will think of the Christ who died for him, and 



WORDS THAT BURN 293 

his thoughts will trouble him, and never, never 
will there come a time when he will cease to 
think, to regret, to curse himself and his own 
folly. 

But now listen while I tell you that you can 
get rid of all the sins of the past. Though your 
sins be as scarlet they shall be whiter than snow ; 
though they be crimson yet shall they be as wool. 
He is able to save to the uttermiost all them that 
come, and He says, "Him that cometh I will in 
nowise cast out." Make Jesus your Friend, make 
Him your Advocate. Let your Elder Brother 
plead your case. Mr. Moody was one time hold- 
ing a meeting that was so largely attended the 
authorities forbade any more being allowed in 
the building. An usher was stationed at the 
door to keep folks out. A lady of the town got 
out of her carriage, walked up to the door as 
though all she had to do was to ask and she 
would be admitted, but the usher kindly told her 

there was no room for her. But I am Mrs. . 

No difference; Mrs. could not get in; the 

orders were to be obeyed. The Representative 
in Congress of that District walked up and said, 

"I am M5r. , of this District, arid being in 

the city a few days I thought I would like to hear 
Mr. Moody," and he presented his card; but it 



294 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

was no use — no one admitted. Then came the 
Mayor of the City, and he was sure of admit- 
tance; he told who he was, but no, sir, he, too, 
was denied. Just then came a seedy-looking man 
up to the usher and he said, "I want to get in 
and hear Mr. Moody/' and he was told it was 
too late; the building was crowded and no more 
were to be admitted. But he said, "Yes, I will 
see him; tell Mr. Moody his brother George is 
at the door. ,, The usher walked up the aisle, told 
Mr. Moody, who said, "My brother George at 
the door? Let him in!' And he came in. Mr. 
Moody had just left his own chair to begin his 
sermon, and he told George to sit down on his 
chair. So it will be with you if you make Jesus 
your Elder Brother. I expect that each saint will 
have the enemy to object to his entrance to the 
City of God, into the temple of God, but I am 
sure the Word teaches that He will say, "Come, 
ye blessed of my Father/' and He will rise from 
His throne and tell them to sit down, for even 
as He overcame so have they overcome through 
His blood and the Word of their testimony, and 
shall sit down with Him on His throne. 

Old John Burns was the citizen hero of Get- 
tysburg. When the battle was on the Confed- 
erates having invaded Pennsylvania, he took his 



WORDS THAT BURN 295 

old squirrel rifle and went out on the firing line 
and pumped lead into the ranks of the enemy un- 
til he was wounded. The press of the North 
lauded the old hero to the skies, called him all 
the good names they could think of. Abraham 
Lincoln, the President, heard of Burns and his 
deed, and sat down and wrote, "Mr. Burns, Get- 
tysburg, Pa., Dear sir : I have heard of your con- 
duct at Gettysburg, and I write to assure you I 
would be very glad to welcome you to Washing- 
ton, and in the White House anytime you may 
be pleased to come. Yours, A. Lincoln. ,, You 
may be sure John Burns was pleased to go. He 
got out his best bib and tucker, his old Prince 
Albert coat, brushed up his old silk hat, and 
went to Washington. The usher at the White 
House door met him and asked his name. "I am 
John Burns, of Gettysburg." "Welcome, sir; we 
are expecting you." He went in, met Mr. Lin- 
coln, who made him feel at home, and took him 
to church the next day. As they walked up the 
aisle they were the observed of all observers. The 
obsequious usher bowed Mr. Lincoln into the 
pew, but when old John Burns attempted to fol- 
low, the usher said, "No, no, old man ; you cannot 
go in there." But Mr. Lincoln reached out his 
long arm and said, "He is my old man; let him 



296 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

in." And in he went. So I am believing the 
enemy who is an accuser of all the brethren, of 
every child of God, will follow clear to the gates 
of the City, he will accuse of all the sins that 
ever were committed, all the mistakes that ever 
were made, will say, "He belongs to me; he has 
no right in there." But the Christ of Calvary 
who died to save, and who heard you down at 
that mourners' bench, will say, "He is Mine. Let 
him in" And then with all the blood-washed 
saved to all eternity, you will go in to go out no 
more forever, and with the saints of all ages you 
will be "transported your Lord and your Savior 
to greet." Thank God for Jesus, thank God for 
the Blood, thank God for the Holy Spirit, thank 
God for the Word, which is the power of God 
unto salvation to everyone that believeth. Praise 
His Name Forever! 



WORDS THAT BURN 297 



XVI 
THREE WONDERFUL DAYS 

"Day of Salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2). "Day of Re- 
demption" (Eph. 4:30). "Day of Judgment" (2 
Peter 2:9). 

The day of salvation is not a period of twenty- 
four hours ; it is not to be measured by time, for 
it began in a timeless eternity, before time began. 
It dates from that period when in the council 
chambers of the Godhead there came one who 
said, "Lo, I came to do thy will, O God; a body 
hast Thou prepared me." Before man fell, God 
knew he would fall and made provision for his 
salvation. Before the morning stars sang to- 
gether, or even an angel's wing had fanned the 
viewless ether, He had a plan for the deliverance 
of a lost race. Angels desired to look into it, 
but could not comprehend the love that provided 
it. The old poet was right when he said, "the 
first archangel never saw so much of God be- 
fore." Angels could not save, none but God 
could devise a plan that would meet the need. As 



298 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

the Englishman wrote, "He who best the van- 
tage might have taken, found out the remedy." 
The Son of God, the Fellow of Jehovah, the Sec- 
ond Person in the Trinity, took upon Himself 
our nature, stooped down to our low estate that 
we might be redeemed. 

This salvation is a salvation from sin; not 
primarily from hell, but from sin. I once saw 
a minister in my audience, and out of courtesy 
I asked him to come on the platform and lead 
in prayer. His whole prayer was that God would 
save people from hell, and all the time that he 
was praying I was revolting against it, because 
I do not believe that Jesus died to save men from 
hell — but from the sin that sends them to hell. 
When we talk about sin, we are talking about 
something that all know about, for all have 
sinned, and the glad tidings of salvation declare 
a Savior who came to save from sin in this life 
here and now. I want to go even farther than 
that and say on the authority of the Word, man 
must quit sinning, go out of the sinning business 
altogether, before God will save him, for sin is 
the only thing that God hates. It crucified the 
Son of God, it robs heaven, populates hell, fills 
prisons, and dance halls, and theaters, and houses 
of lust, and dishonors the Holy Ghost and the 



WORDS THAT BURN 299 

Word. Sin separated the first man from God, 
and it is the only thing that will or can. Listen 
to the Word: "Your sins have separated you 
from Me." 

Sin burdens the conscience. Some few years 
ago the Treasurer of the United States received 
a letter from a conscience-stricken man who had 
been a quartermaster during the Civil War, and 
it read something like this : "During the late war 
I was a quartermaster and I robbed the Govern- 
ment of three thousand dollars. It has been 
such a burden in my conscience ever since that 
I herein restore the principal and interest to 
date." Along with this in the Treasury is one 
that reads. "Please find enclosed five cents. I used 
as postage a two-cent stamp that had formerly 
done service. I want to get right with God,, and 
this has bothered me ever since I committed the 
sin." It is not the amount, it is the sin. Con- 
science never sleeps. A boy one time went up to 
a baker's wagon and stole some cookies there- 
from, and twenty years after that boy wrote a 
letter acknowledging the sin, and paid for the 
cookies. I was preaching in Troy, Ohio, and a 
young man came to me and said, "You only got 
me in one thing. I have to pay fpr some water- 
melons I stole sometime ago/' Folks laugh at 



300 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

that as though stealing melons was a joke; but 
theft will send a soul to hell, whether it is a wa- 
termelon or a bank. Sin is sin, and must be re- 
pented of. There was a young girl who worked 
in a food factory as clerk. She stole money time 
and again and placed it away. After a while she 
became alarmed and altered her books, and then, 
fearing the books would be examined, she went 
down to the office and set fire to the desk, intend- 
ing to destroy the books, which she did, and the 
office and the factory. In a few years she was 
married to an estimable young man and she sur- 
prised him with the prodigality with which she 
spent money and purchased furniture and a pi- 
ano. He said to her, "Why, where did you get 
all this money/' And she replied, "I worked for 
it, was saving, and had it in the bank." One 
month there was a revival came to that town, 
right down from heaven. It had been prayed 
down, and that kind of a revival always uncovers 
sin, and alarms the conscience of the wrong- 
doer. This young wife got under awful convic- 
tion, and one day when her husband came home 
she said, "I have a confession to make to you, 
husband. I stole all the money with which I 
bought the furniture." He stood aghast, looked 
at her in amazement, and then she said, "That is 



WORDS THAT BURN 301 

not all. You remember the fire in the city that 
destroyed the factory? Well, I went down to 
the factory one evening, fearing the thefts would 
be discovered, and I set fire to the bopks, but the 
fire spread and the factory was burned down. 
The papers said it was an incendiary fire, but I 
did it, I did it! Oh, what shall I do? What shall 
I do?" Let me tell you what they did. They 
went to the Directors of the Company, and that 
young husband said, "My wife has a confession 
to make." She made it and when she was through 
he said to them, "You can have all the furniture, 
all the paintings, all the money we have. 
We will do all we can to right the wrong she did ; 
she must get right with God," Oh, how sin bur- 
dened that woman's conscience. Oh, the blast- 
ing, blighting, burning influence of sin. I know 
a man who one day stole a broadax, and while 
he was seeking pardon God never said one word 
about that ax, but in the near future after he 
heard from heaven, God spoke to him one day 
and said, "Son, you must take back that broadax 
you stole." And he said, "I will, tonight, Lord." 
But God said, "Take it back in daylight." And 
he did. I knew a boy about ten years of age who 
came to me in one of my meetings and he said, 
"I have just got one thing more to do." I asked 



302 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

what it was and was told that one day he saw 
a man pulling some things out of his pocket, pull 
out also a penknife, which he dropped unknow- 
ingly on the ground, and then walked off and 
left it lying on the ground. This lad picked it 
up and kept it, but said he, "I must take it back 
and tell him." And he did and was a satisfied 
boy after that. In that same meeting a young 
woman came to me and said, "I want some ad- 
vice; I am keeping company with a young man 
who is not a Christian, and I guess I must give 
him up." I told her that was right. God was 
not pleased with it. Then she said, "I have a 
date with him to bring me to church tonight." 
I said come with your mother; let him go; he 
will not bother you when you let him know yot» 
are going with God. How faithful the Holy 
Ghost is all the time and everywhere. At Sulli- 
van, Ind., a young man walked into a grocery 
store and said to the grocer, "Since that fellow 
has been preaching in this meeting my girl won't 
look at me." The Spirit had been applying the 
truth to the girl's heart, and she was minding 
God. Thank His holy name, this salvation, the 
real thing, will get a man where he will not only 
not sin, but where he will not want to sin — the 
want to will all be taken out. And God does it 



WORDS THAT BURN 303 

every time when you are willing He should. 
Faithful is He who calleth you, who also will 
do it. 

Let me now call your attention to this second 
text — The Day of Redemption. This is a day 
the sinner will never see. Redemption is salva- 
tion completed. It is deliverance from all the in- 
firmities of the body, from all the ills that flesh 
is heir to. The Israelites will tell you that from 
the time that Jacob wrestled with the angel, he 
limped all the rest of his days. But when the 
resurrection morning comes, and that body is re- 
stored, Jacob will not have his limp any longer. 
We may suffer in these bodies of ours clear down 
to the grave, and live to please God, too, but 
there our sufferings will all end. Trials, tempta- 
tions, conflict, suffering, will all be a thing of 
the past. I confess I think a great deal of this 
body of mine. In it I marched many a weary 
mile, carrying a Springfield rifle and tramping 
through the red clay of old Virginia. In this 
body I one day met Jesus Christ, and heard Him 
say, "Thy sins which are many are all forgiven 
thee." In this body, which is a temple of the 
Holy Ghost, I have had many precious times. 
Yes, I expect in this very same body, only glori- 
fied, to see my Lord. I have no sympathy with 



30 4 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

that hymn that is sometimes sung, in ecstacy by 
some folks, "I don't care where you bury me, 
my sins are pardoned, I am free." I do care. 
If Jesus does not come for me, and I should go 
the way that Jesus went, down through the 
grave, place this old body away very carefully, 
for as sure as Jesus rose from the grave, I have 
the promise, "They that sleep in Jesus will God 
bring with Him," and one day the clods shall 
fly above my grave and I shall get up in this 
same body and meet my Lord in the air. That 
will be a wonderful day to the saints. One day 
a pastor was in the poor house visiting an old 
saint who was on her death bed,, and she was 
smiling, so he asked her, "Why are you smil- 
ing?" and she said, "I was thinking what a 
change it will be for me, from the almshouse to 

gl°ry" 

"Oh, what a wondrous change shall Jesus* suf- 
ferers know, 

As o'er the fields of bliss they range, incapable 
of woe" 

Think of it! From trial to triumph^ from the 
cross to the crown. Paul tells us that the saints 
in glory are longing for the time when they shall 
be restored to their bodies, shall have them again. 



WORDS THAT BURN 305 

That reminds me that a lieutenant down on the 
Peninsula lost his good right arm. When he 
came out from under the influence of the anaes- 
thetic he said to the surgeon, "Where is my right 
arm?" And they told him out in the ditch. 
"Bring it to me; I want to see it once more. ,, 
When they brought it in he grasped it with his 
left hand and said, "Goodbye, old armi ; you will 
never swing another saber, nor pull on another 
bridle, but goodbye till the morning of the first 
resurrection, and then I'll see you again. ,, Do 
you believe that? Have you a faith like that? 
If not, then you are three thousand years behind 
the times, for old Job said as he lay there in his 
affliction, "I know that my Redeemer liveth and 
that he shall stand at the latter day upon the 
earth, and though after the skin the worms shall 
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see 
God." Piety day; then thou shalt be recom- 
pensed at the resurrection of the just. That day 
of redemption is a day the sinner shall never see. 
With him the worst is yet to come. Whatsoever 
a man soweth that shall he also reap. Evil men 
and seducers shall wax worse and worse. 

This leads us to the third text— The Day of 
Judgment. A day that is big with destiny. I 
saw a picture once — let me describe it to you. 



306 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

A court room, twelve empty chairs; in these 
the jury had sat ; a lone man on the bench wait- 
ing; a prisoner in the box, thoughtful and pensive, 
leaning his head on his hand; nearby sat a 
woman, the wife of the prisoner, with several 
little children standing by, and a babe on her lap. 
The title of the picture was, "Waiting for the 
Verdict." He did not know what it would be, 
but every sinner dying in his sins knows what 
the verdict will be. The soul that sinneth it shall 
die. Sentence against an evil work is only de- 
layed, but each and every evil doer knows God 
is just. Too late at that day to remedy mistakes, 
to undo wrongs. Carlyle, the old Scotch writer 
and philosopher, was indeed a very gifted man; 
a man of genius, a vigorous writer and author. 
He had a wife who would have shone in any 
circle, but his wife was overshadowed by his 
gigantic qualities. He kept her in the shade, and 
she was little appreciated by him or his friends. 
The time came when she died, and then he knew 
what she was. He said one day, "I have lived 
thirty years with an angel, and did not know it." 
He loaded up with flowers from the hothouse 
one day and went out to her grave (some men 
never give their wives any flowers till after they 
are dead), and as he dropped them one by one 



WORDS THAT BURN 307 

on her grave, he said, "Oh, Jean, Jean, if I only 
had known." But it is too late now, and regrets 
never undo the past, nor do they bring back op- 
portunities. You know that the most of folks 
have their little spats when they are first mar- 
ried — I mean after the glamor has worn off. 
So did a young couple of whom I have heard. 
The wife followed him to the door as he was 
going to work and said to him, "Goodbye, John." 
But he went right on as though he had not heard. 
Raising her voice she again said "Goodbye, 
John " But the brute went right on. Calling 
after him as he was nearly passing out of sight, 
she repeated, "I said Goodbye, John." And there 
was no reply. How he did wish as they brought 
him home shortly before noon that he had said 
goodbye, just once; but now it was too late — 
the little cottage was burned to the ground and 
she was in the ashes. Regrets avail nothing. 
So it will be at the Judgment Day. We may 
long to undo the past, we may pray, but pray- 
ing time has gone forever. As a man has sowed 
so shall he reap. He who has said, "Go thy 
way," will hear, "Depart from me." He who 
said, "Have me excused," will find he is excused 
and excused forever. As a man sows so shall 
he reap. Destiny is fixed forever, and fixed by 



308 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

a man's own actions. Here we make character, 
and what God inspects there is character. We 
must leave houses and lands and reputation be- 
hind us, but we take character with us, and it 
is the only thing that we can take. Probation 
ends forever; the last opportunity is gone, and 
gone forever. When James Pollock was Gov- 
ernor of Pennsylvania a number of years ago, 
the pardoning power was entirely in the hands 
of the Governor, not with a commission, as it is 
now. There was a man who was condemned to 
die, and the last Friday was near at hand. Gov- 
ernor Pollock was a Christian man and much 
interested in the spiritual condition of the crim- 
inal. One day he went to the Warden of the 
penitentiary and told him he would like to see 
the man soon to die, saying at the same time, 
"Do not tell him who I am; just put me in the 
cell with him." The Warden called the turnkey, 
gave him his instructions, and the Governor was 
ushered into the cell. When the prisoner saw 
him he said, "Who are you?" "I came to pray 
with you," said the Governor. "Well, you can 
get out of here. When I want any snivelling 
Harrisburg parsons to pray with me, I will send 
for them." "But, man, you are to die next Fri- 
day, and I am interested in your soul. I would 



WORDS THAT BURN 309 

like to pray for you." "Get out, I told you. 
Hallo, turnkey! Come take this preacher out of 
here." The turnkey came, and Mr. Pollock left 
without the opportunity to pray with the pris- 
oner. A few days after the turnkey said to the 
prisoner, "Do you know who that man was that 
wanted to pray for you?" "No, I do not. I 
suppose it was some preacher from the city." 
"No," said the turnkey; "it was Governor Pol- 
lock." "Governor Pollock? Why did you not 
tell me? I would have fallen on my bended 
knees to him. I would have begged him for a 
pardon. I would have told him of my wife and lit- 
tle ones. I would have told him that there were 
extenuating circumstances, that I was not wholly 
to blame." But the opportunity had gone. If 
that man had prayed, if he had truly repented, 
who knows but the Governor might have been 
moved to pardon him. But too late, too late. 
Here we may have pardon, here we may pray, 
here God is always present, here are promises 
that encourage, here are praying friends, and the 
very heavens are bending as God inclines Him- 
self to hear the sinner pray ; but in that great day 
praying breath is spent in vain. Do you know, 
have you learned it from God's Word, that the 
men of today are the worst sinners the world 



310 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

ever saw, or the heavens ever looked upon ? Not 
Scriptural ? Listen to this : " Woe unto you, Ca- 
pernaum, woe unto you, Bethesda. It shall be 
more tolerable in the day of Judgment for Tyre 
and Sidon than for thee." Why? Because they 
have sinned against greater light. Hear the 
Master, He who spake as never man spake, He 
to whom was given the tongue of the learned. 
"The people of Nineveh shall rise in judgment 
and condemn this generation, for they repented 
at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater 
than Jonah is here." We are living in the best 
age the world has ever seen, the Dispensation 
of the Holy Ghost. He is doing^ His best to win 
men for God and righteousness, and men are do- 
ing their utmost to resist Him. I do really be- 
lieve that the very devils in hell will be astonished 
because you are lost. You for whom the Son 
of God died; you to whom all heaven appealed; 
you for whom a mother prayed, with whom the 
Spirit of God pled and strove. Some years 
ago a man of wealth was the president of a Na- 
tional Bank in Chicago. He owned coal lands 
in southern Indiana, was part owner of stone 
quarrys, and spent much money to open up a 
railroad to the mines. One venture he used the 
bank to advance his own private schemes, vio- 



WORDS THAT BURN 311 

lated the law of the nation, and the Government 
officials were on his track at once. He was ar- 
rested, tried, and though defended by counsel of 
ability and talent, he was found guilty. The case 
was appealed to the Supreme Court and after 
one year, during which he restored some mil- 
lions of dollars, the Supreme Court affirmed the 
decision of the lower court, and the wires from 
Washington flashed the news to Chicago that 
he must go to Leavenworth. The detective at 
once was by his side; he bade goodbye to wife 
and children, took the train on the Rock Island, 
and went to the Federal Prison at Leavenworth. 
The guards on the walls knew he was coming, 
the prisoners in the prison knew, somehow or 
other, that he was coming. And when he was 
given his number and suit, they whispered to 

each other is here. The man who had 

his millions, the man who was president of 

, the man who moved in the highest circles 



of society. If we had his chances we never 
would have been found here; we had no high- 
priced lawyer, we had no friends to appeal our 
case, or we would not have entered this place 
of woe. So in hell, when you shall be lost, the 
very demons will hiss with astonishment that 
you of all men should be eternally lost. Hear 



312 THE DEPARTED LORD, or, 

them as they taunt the lost soul. "For us no 
Savior died, no Holy Spirit ever strove with us, 
no Gospel of salvation for us. To us no ministers 
ever came, talking of hope. When we fell, we 
fell forever. But you — you trampled the blood 
of the Son of God under your feet; you came to 
the torments of the damned over the crucified 
body of the Christ of Calvary. You invited 
^our own damnation; you paved your own way 
to this hell home of the forever lost." Is it not 
so that today men are running against the shields 
of the Almighty? They insult the Holy Ghost, 
they invite the wrath of God. Hear the Word, 
"Hell from beneath is moved to meet thee at 
thy coming." The wrath of God is revealed from 
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous- 
ness of men who hold the truth in urighteous- 
ess. Men today are sinning against light, 
against the examples of godly living in their own 
homes, against their own consciences. The Word 
cries, "Prepare to meet thy God," and they make 
no preparation. The Son of God says, "Be ye 
also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not 
the Son of Man cometh." And there are few 
getting ready. Men are in love with sin — sin, 
the thing that God hates — they are crucifying 
the Son of God afresh and putting Him to an 



WORDS THAT BURN 313 

open shame, and yet he cries, "How shall I give 
him up?" Oh, men and women for whom Christ 
Jied, yield yourself to God before it shall be 
eternally too late, and thou shalt take up the cry, 
"The harvest is passed, the summer is ended and 
I am not saved" And to be not saved is to be 
eternally lost! 



Deacidified using the Booksceeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnes>um Ox.de 
Treatment Date. Oct. 2005 

111 Thomson Park Dnve 
Cranberry TownsMp. PA 16066 

,-jo>i\77Q-?11 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





II Hill III 

017 040 587 



388 

HSH 



■KSMaSBHBHHfiSSi 



Bra 



SB 

m 



BJBBH 



B99B9 KBM BW 

sSSSSBSaSsSs 

wBBf 

jnraRffl jlllTlT 
EHfiGUMa. 

■•;•"■ 
9s£» 

■■■■.'.. 



